Nicholas John Turney Monsarrat, RNVR
| Born | 22 Mar 1910 | ||
| Died | 8 Aug 1979 | (69) |
 | Ranks
Retired: 1946 Decorations
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Warship Commands listed for Nicholas John Turney Monsarrat, RNVR
| Ship | Rank | Type | From | To |
| HMS Shearwater (L 39 / K 39) | T/Lt. | Patrol vessel | 3 Mar 1943 | 20 Oct 1943 |
| HMS Ettrick (K 254) | T/A/Lt.Cdr. | Frigate | 30 Dec 1943 | 29 Jan 1944 |
| HMS Perim (K 593) | T/A/Lt.Cdr. | Frigate | 16 Mar 1944 | 24 Dec 1944 |
Career information
Nicholas Monsarrat, a pacifist, served in the Royal Navy as part of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR) from 1940 to 1946. He had been a lifelong sailing enthusiast and that made him a capable naval officer in charge of the smaller escorts.
Nicholas Monsarrat was a novelist and had been publishing novels since 1936. His most famous work was the Cruel Sea (1951, film made in 1953). He also wrote Three Corvettes in in 1945 and HM Frigate in 1946 - all drawing on his extensive wartime experience. Non-naval titles include the internationally recognized The Tribe That Lost Its Head (1956). He autobiography, Life is a Four Letter Word, came out in two volumes, in 1965 and 1970.
His attitude towards his former enemies, the Germans
From our The Cruel Sea review: His wartime experiences left him with intense feelings of bitterness and dislike toward U-boats and the men who served on them. This attitude is expressed openly in his preface to Schaeffer's book 'U-Boat 977', in which he deplores the "forgive and forget" attitude of the postwar years toward the U-boats and states that "if U-Boat 977 were not two things - a readable book and an engrossing piece of war history - I would not touch it with a depth charge".
Sources
Schaeffer, H. (1975). U-Boat 977.
Wikipedia (n.d). Nicholas Monsarrat.
Events related to this officer
Frigate HMS Perim (K 593)
16 Mar 1944
See mention in HMS Perin's first Captain's autobiography "Life is a Four Letter Word - Volume 2: Breaking Out" in which Nicholas Monsarrat says:
Mine was called Perim, after the tiny island-colony near Aden (there was another one called Monserrat, but they wouldn't give her to me) and in Perim we ran fourteen sea trials, thirteen of them resulting in damage to our main bearings, before a little man from Tyneside was flown out, put his stubby finger on the trouble, and got the programme moving again....I was standing by a newly built frigate in Providence, Rhode Island - a frigate which, as soon as she could be made to work, would be my own pride and joy. But she had been built at lightning speed, together with twenty-three others, by Henry J. Kaiser; and I was never surprised to learn, not many years later, that the Henry J. Kaiser car was no bloody good, because the Henry J, Kaiser frigate was no bloody good either.
Monsarrat, who would later write "The Cruel Sea", mentions that each of these ships cost five million dollars each. He also mentions that HMS Perim worked up off Bermuda.
(1)Media links
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Sources
- Personal communication
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