HMS Ulysses
Alistair MacLean
 The novel features HMS Ulysses, a light cruiser that is extremely well armed and among the fastest ships in the world. (Ulysses is similar to the real Dido-class cruisers. MacLean had served in of that class.) Her crew is pushed well beyond the limits of endurance and the book starts in the aftermath of a mutiny. Ulysses puts to sea again to escort FR-77, a vital convoy heading for Murmansk. (The fictitious convoy FR-77 is based on the ill-fated convoy PQ-17.) They are beset by numerous challenges: an unusually fierce Arctic storm, German ships and U-boats, as well as air attacks. All slowly reduce the convoy from 32 ships to only five. The Ulysses' is sunk in a failed attempt to ram a German cruiser after all her other weapons had been destroyed. This echoes events in which British G-class destroyer and HMS Jervis Bay, an armed merchant cruiser, sacrificed themselves by engaging larger opponents. The book uses a set of events to paint moving portrayals of the crew and the human aspects of the war. His heroes are not especially motivated by ideals, they rarely excel at more than one task and they are outfoxed by a respectable enemy. It is only their resilience, as they redefine the word, that pushes this bunch of seamen to genuine acts of heroism. The realism of the descriptions, the believable motivations of the characters and the simplicity of the line of events make the story all the more credible, though the number of coincidental accidents that plague the crew are startling, robbing them of any real victory.