Soon to be the major motion picture Greyhound on AppleTV+, a WWII naval thriller of “high and glittering excitement” (New York Times) from the author of the legendary Hornblower seriesThe mission of Commander George Krause of the United States Navy is to protect a convoy of thirty-seven merchant ships making their way across the icy North Atlantic from America to England. There, they will deliver … from America to England. There, they will deliver desperately needed supplies, but only if they can make it through the wolfpack of German submarines that awaits and outnumbers them in the perilous seas. For forty eight hours, Krause will play a desperate cat and mouse game against the submarines, combating exhaustion, hunger, and thirst to protect fifty million dollars’ worth of cargo and the lives of three thousand men. Acclaimed as one of the best novels of the year upon publication in 1955, The Good Shepherd is a riveting classic of WWII and naval warfare from one of the 20th century’s masters of sea stories.
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“Greyhound” by C.S. Forester.
(First published 1955 as “The Good Sheperd.)”
Picture an alert Border Collie dashing back and forth, barking, showing his teeth, then dashing off again to protect his flock of sheep from a pack of sly, fierce wolves. Now make the sheep a slow convoy of merchant ships, broad of beam and unarmed, their holds crammed with the food, petroleum, and munitions that are all that is keeping England, battered by Hitler’s Stukas, Heinkels, and Messerschmitts, from falling under the Nazi heel.
Then make the dog a sleek American Navy destroyer, whose captain, Commander George Krause, 42, twenty years out of the Naval Academy yet a combat virgin still. Krause sends his destroyer steaming back and forth along the convoy’s flanks. He chases U-boats fore and aft. He is newly promoted, previously twice passed over, saved from the living death of retirement by the attack on Pearl Harbor.
The story begins more than a year later, and the unblooded Krause finds himself commanding a flotilla of four escort warships from as many countries, senior in rank but junior in the ways of North Atlantic wolfpack warfare. The reader stays with Krause as he fights his vessel, equipped with the primitive radar and sonar of the era, on his feet in the freezing bridge wheelhouse hour after hour after hour, gulping down scalding black coffee, a cold sandwich, his mind on the invisible enemy, unable or unwilling to go below long enough to void his bladder, for watch after watch after watch.
The reader would swear on the family bible that the author of this action-packed, cannot-be-put down novel is an old salt, a man of the sea—but no, he is merely the master novelist C.S. Forester, creator of the long series of best-selling Horatio Hornblower-books and many, many more gems. Remember Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn in “The African Queen”? That, too, was Forester, an Englishman by birth, who preferred living in California.
Why did it take Hollywood 65 years to find this gem (First published as The Good Shepherd in 1955), and turn it into a Tom Hanks movie, Greyhound?”
No matter. Stock up on popcorn, put your feet up—and don’t miss this book.
Classic C. S. Forester development of characters. Outstanding narrative. Set later in history than most of his work. Owned it a long time and read it three times. Book is better than the recent movie based on it.
I have read a lot of C.S. Forester and this is one of his best.
A good read.
Well written, a real page turner.
C. S. Forrester is a naval expert. This is well written.
This book realistically portrays the tense hours of a World War II convoy under prolonged attack by a U-boat wolf pack in the North Atlantic. The reader experiences the engagement through the eyes of a self-critical United States Navy Commander who leads the four naval escort ships—a mixed group from different Allied countries: two destroyers and two smaller corvettes. They battle their way through with losses and successes, balanced on a knife’s edge, as they plod their way toward the British Isles and desperately needed help. The protagonist Commander is human in his self-doubt and heroic in his unassuming competence. He is the epitome of the seemingly common man who, through effort, dedication, and training performs heroically beyond his own perceived limitations. Although fiction, it could have been the story of any number of actual Allied convoys struggling against long odds during the early stages of the Battle of the Atlantic in 1942 or 1943. C. S. Forester is a master of sea stories and those who love his Hornblower books will find The Good Shepherd an enjoyable read as well.
This books grabs the reader immediately and doesn’t let the reader out of it’s grip until the very last page. It is totally non-stop naval action. It is obvious why Mr. Hanks wanted to make the movie version.
You don’t need to be a sailor or have ever been to the ocean to love this story. Jump in and start reading, you won’t regret it and you won’t get any sleep until you finish it. Whoever said sailing on the ocean was romantic needs to pick up the captain’s story and hold on tight. Excellent characterization development and nail-biting tension.
Dry reading
Action-packed from the first sentence to the last! Hard to put down! Loved it!
Really quite an extraordinary piece of work. A cliff-hangar with fascinating insights into what it means to lead a convoy across submarine infested waters during WWII.
I’m reading this book. Not yet sure about my final rating.
Amazing that Krause could still be alert and even awake after 48 hours with no sleep. A book about real heroism!
Great read about aspects of WW2 that we seldom hear about.
This is the book on which the Tom Hanks movie Greyhound is based. Capt. Krause is a much darker character, much more haunted by decades when he was passed over for promotion and much more slavish to the Navy, resulting in a nasty divorce from a wife who gave him great happiness at first. This darkness is part of his internal dynamic as he matches wits against U-boat captains attacking his convoy. The book also delves a great deal more into the tactics and teamwork of convoy escorts in the North Atlantic as well as the cat-and-mouse movements of an escort hunting down a U-boat.
Thirty-seven ships carrying supplies to Britain in a convoy, with only two destroyers and two escorts to guard then, come upon a wolfpack of U-boats. This is the story of the captain of one of the destroyers, the son of a minister and graduate of Annapolis, who is untested in battle. It’s the account of a harrowing twenty-four hours, following the captain’s thought, even Scripture verses he’d memorized, decisions made following military training and demeanor even without meals and enough rest.
This remarkable story is the basis for the Tom Hanks movie “Greyhound.” He adapted C. S. Forester’s “The Good Shepherd” for the film.
I’ve read this wonderful book several times over the last thirty years. I love it. Great characters and a story that is so much more than the story of a WWII naval battle. Exciting and engaging. Not just a man’s book. I just heard last week that Tom Hanks is making a movie out of it. Read the book first.