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The following novels by Douglas Reeman are listed in the order in which they were published. Dates of publication are listed under the title.
A Prayer for the Ship
Hutchinson, 1958
North Sea, 1940s ... Memories are short on HMS Royston they have to be. As mother ship to a battered, war-torn bunch of MTBs she must carry out her vital role whatever the conditions, whatever the risks. Sub-Lieutenant Royce's predecessor has only been dead forty-eight hours, and already the crew has forgotten him. Now with only three months' sea-experience behind him, Royce must learn the job the hard way in the tough school of combat.
High Water
Hutchinson, 1959
Post World War II ... With his own boat, the motor-yacht Seafox, former naval officer Philip Vivian had hoped to earn a living free from the petty restrictions of everyday life, close to the sea he loved. Now, however, his dream is threatened by financial difficulties. So when a profitable - if legally dubious proposition is put to him by an old naval comrade-in-arms, Vivian is willing to listen. But what starts out as a harmless adventure soon turns into something altogether more sinister. And Vivian finds himself trapped in a treacherous web of violence and crime, dangerously torn between his stubborn sense of past loyalties and his duty to a society he has always despised.
Send a Gunboat
Hutchinson, 1960
Hong Kong, 1950s ... HMS Wagtail: river gunboat. A ship seemingly at the end of her useful life, lying in Hong Kong dockyard, awaiting her last summons to the breakers' yard. Commander Justin Rolfe: also seemingly at the end of his useful naval life. An embittered man, brooding and angry from a court-martial verdict. Then the offshore island of Santu is threatened with invasion from the Chinese mainland. On the island: a small British community that must be brought out. Commander Rolfe and the Wagtail are ordered to the island. The job is regarded with sullen resentment by his crew, but to Rolfe, and even the ship, it is a job that offers the chance of a reprieve and a restoration of self respect.
Dive in the Sun
Hutchinson, 1961
Adriatic, 1940s ... Curtis was the pro. He could steer a sub through a saloon and no one would notice. Duncan was the grumbler, more at home in the Aussie Outback than twenty fathoms under the Adriatic. Jervis was the spit-and-polish man, who knew the correct way to die. And George, the Cockney, was the toughest of them all. Four men in the Royal Navy's smallest sub, preparing the way for history's largest invasion. They had three tasks: slip into a closely guarded harbour, attach a time-charge to the Jerries' biggest dry-dock, and escape with their lives if possible. The first two tasks were orders. The third was optional.
The Hostile Shore
Hutchinson, 1962
South China Sea, 1960s ... The Sigli had been just an old passenger launch, but when the Japanese invaded Singapore during World War II everything that could float was pressed into service. And so, crammed with refugees, harried and bombed by enemy planes, the Sigli had struggled south in a desperate attempt to escape. Rupert Blair's family had been among the passengers on that fateful journey in which the ship and all aboard had disappeared. Twenty years later, Blair still hasn't forgotten - has never abandoned his obsession to discover exactly what had happened. Now Rupert Blair embarks upon a journey of his own - one that will take him to a primitive, savage island in search of the truth.
The Last Raider
Hutchinson, 1963
Kiel, December 1917 ... The Vulkan sailed from Kiel. She was a German commerce raider. The last raider. First of all she had to break through the British blockade. Then, striking west and south to the open seas, to sink and destroy every ship, every cargo before it could be delivered to the enemies of the Fatherland. At this stage of the war, Germany needed a gesture and the Vulkan was to be that gesture. There had been other raiders, but unlike those earlier predecessors, she would be alone with every man's hand against her. And to Korvetten Kapitän Felix von Steiger fell the duty of making this voyage possible.
With Blood and Iron
Jarrolds, 1964
January, 1944 ... On the vast grey waters of the Atlantic the balance of power has shifted. For Rudolf Steiger, ace U-boat commander, there is a new sense of urgency. Dedicated, ruthless, fanatical, he has become a legend in his own time, a symbol of Germany's greatness. But now, as he takes the U-boat flotilla, Meteor, out into the bitter winter seas, he faces a new and deadly enemy - his own nagging doubts about the outcome of the war. Steiger knows that his destiny may be to court heroic death rather than suffer ignominious defeat.
HMS Saracen
Hutchinson, 1965
Malta, 1941 ... To most people HMS Saracen is just an ugly, obsolete ship with an equally ugly recent history: her last commander is due for court martial after shelling the troops he was sent to protect. But to Captain Richard Chesnaye she brings back memories memories of the First World War when he and the old monitor went through the Gallipoli campaign together. It seems that captain and ship are both past their best. But as the war enters a new phase Chesnaye senses the possibility of a fresh, significant role - for him and the Saracen.
Path of the Storm
Hutchinson, 1966
Hong Kong, 1960s ... The old submarine-chaser USS Hibiscus, re-fitting in a Hong Kong dockyard before being handed over to the Nationalist Chinese, is suddenly ordered to the desolate island group of Payenhau. For Captain Mark Gunnar - driven by the memory of his torture at the hands of Viet Cong guerillas - the new command is a chance to even the score against a ruthless, unrelenting enemy. But Payenhau is very different from his expectations, and as the weather worsens a crisis develops that Gunnar must face alone.
The Deep Silence
Hutchinson, 1967
March, 1967 ... HMS Temeraire, latest and most advanced of Britains nuclear submarines. When Temeraire's trials are cut short and she is ordered to the Far East to reinforce the fleet against a threat from Red China, her captain, David Jermain, knows that this is no routine exercise in flag waving. And once in Asian waters he and his submarine find themselves involved in a hidden undeclared conflict beneath the sea. While the politicians haggle over a situation which could hold the seeds of a full-scale war, Commander Jermain must keep his faith in himself and his new ship's potential - even when ordered to take the Temeraire to the edge of a catastrophe.
The Pride and the Anguish
Hutchinson, 1968
Singapore, November, 1941 ... They called it the "Gibraltar of the Far East" - a British rock that could not be taken. But suddenly, in a lightning blow, Singapore is defeated. Call it incompetence or call it false pride. It doesn't really matter. The warplanes of the Rising Sun command the skies. And two officers on a battered gunboat are all that is left of England's Empire in the East!
To Risks Uknown
Hutchinson, 1969
Adriatic, 1943 ... The Navy's Special Operations Forces had received the word from the high command: from now on, there would be no retreat. For the men of the HMS Thistle it meant a new kind of war - a war of stealth and cunning far beyond enemy lines. The Thistle was a battlewise corvette, drafted for secret strikes in the Nazi-bound Adriatic. No matter that half her crew were green boys and the other half hardtack misfits. In war, no one cared about the past - only the future - what men could wrest from their guns and the sea.
The Greatest Enemy
Hutchinson, 1970
Gulf of Thailand, 1969 ... Twenty-five years ago HMS Terrapin was part of a crack hunter/killer group in the Battle of the Atlantic. Now she is working out her last commission in the Gulf of Thailand. To Lieutenant-Commander Standish, the frigate seems to mark the end of his hopes of a career in the Navy. Then a new captain arrives, a man driven by an old-fashioned, almost obsessive patriotism. And under his stubborn leadership Standish and the crew discover a long-forgotten unity of purpose.
Rendezvous - South Atlantic
Hutchinson, 1972
Atlantic, 1941 ... She was a battered merchant cruiser, decked out in a new coat of paint and a few ancient guns. Her patrol: Iceland. Her crew: a roster of has-beens, with an admiral of faded glory. But in the killing ground of the Atlantic, Nazi U-boats ran swift and deadly. The Benbecula's men knew this war of nerves and tossing ice caps was a game you couldn't afford to lose. And for one more brave, impossible hour they had to play the odds of battle and the sea.
His Majesty's U-Boat or Go In and Sink!
Hutchinson, 1973
February, 1943 ... Europe is wracked by the fiercest fighting of the Second World War. Lieutenant-Commander Steven Marshall brings his submarine, sole survivor of a flotilla decimated in Mediterranean waters, back to Britain. There he assumes command of a captured German U-boat and returns to the Mediterranean, to pose as a German ship and crew. The Royal Navy is unaware of the spy ship's true identity and suspense builds to unbearable levels as Commander Marshall threads his way among potential destroyers on both sides, to annihilate enemy installations and to sabotage an Italian factory at work on secret weapons threatening the Allied invasion.
The Destroyers
Hutchinson, 1974
June, 1943 ... The eight destroyers had seen just about every kind of action since they were originally built to fight the Kaiser's navy. To help pave the way for the Allied invasion, the veteran ships were transferred to Special Operations and sent to the icy North Atlantic. Were they picked for their fighting experience - or because they were expendable? Either way, Lieutenant-Commander Keith Drummond, captain of the destroyer Warlock, was determined to guide the old ships to their final glory.
Winged Escort
Hutchinson, 1975
Summer, 1943 ... As the grim years of the Second World War go by, the destruction of Allied shipping mounts. Out of the terrible loss of men and ships, the escort carrier is born. At twenty-six, fighter pilot Tim Rowan, RNVR, is already a veteran of many campaigns. Now he joins the escort carrier, Growler, a posting which takes him first to the bitter waters of the Arctic and all the misery of convoy duty to Murmansk, and then south to the Indian Ocean and the strange new terror of the Japanese Kamikaze.
Surface with Daring
Hutchinson, 1976
Norwegian Coast, 1940s ... Hiding, lying in wait on the sea bed, is EX 16, one of the most important ships in the Royal Navy. She's not much to look at, and she's only 54 feet long, with no defensive armament. But her four-man crew knows that the outcome of the war could depend on this midget submarine. Seaton, her commander, understands what his men face. There is the boredom, the discomfort, the jealousy and bickering; and already they have confronted enormous dangers on desperate raids into Norway. Now, poised for the attack on a secret Nazi rocket installation, Seaton must hold his crew together for the hell that await them.
Copyright Highseas Authors Limited
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Douglas Reeman's first novel, A Prayer for the Ship, published in 1968, and a later novel, The White Guns, are biographical in nature, and were based on his service in the Royal Navy aboard Motor Torpedo Boats (MTBs) during the Second World War.
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