The Fighting Civilians [Paperback]

The story starts on April 1st 1942 when the NATALIAN was getting ready to leave Liverpool in convoy and it ends on July 21st 1942 when the ship was torpedoed and sank. Though the main topic of the book is a merchant ship in the time of war one can - and must - read it also as a description of everyday shipboard life, of that very special idiom of seafarers, of their customs and their hardships. The author was not an engineer but a close friend of his main character (and perhaps of himself?) was a third engineer. While it is often reported that bridge crews lived in a social distance to engine crews, Daly did notice and describe the very hard work of firemen shovelling coal into the fires feeding the boilers (24), and he must have actually looked on when engineers had to stop a leak and one of them had to crawl inside the hellish hot furnace.(150) In putting in the complaint of the Chief Engineer that after the successful flight from a submarine the bridge did not give them any information "down there" (130), Daly voices one of the constant hardships of engine crews. They were cut off from the outside world, and the officers on the bridge most often restricted their communication to the transmission of orders.

While the specific story of the invented ship, though fascinating to read, might not excuse the recommendation of this book to maritime historians the many details which prove the firsthand experiences of its author make it a historical source which, though we cannot cite it as such, helps us to understand the life and work, the fears and the hopes of seafarers during World War II. Just a few examples: Daly writes that amongst the many who had taken the Merchant Navy Gunnery Courses, there were many stewards who - because of the reduction in passenger service - would otherwise have been unemployed. (21) Or the remark that reading became an important recreation when the use of private radio receivers could no longer be allowed. It helped that the Seafarers Education Service had installed and maintained a small library in the ship. And, of course, yarning was still customary. Daly wrote a really nice paragraph on the art of yarning in the fo'c'sle (89), and he noted that even during the war a feeling of excitement ran through the ship when she was nearing a port.

According to Charles Daly, who edited the manuscript of his grandfather, the author was inspired to write the book by the experience of having to testify in a Naval Court where a number of the crew were tried for the pilferage of cargo. In the book this judicial affair started on July 5th 1942 and it ends with the discharge and imprisonment of most of the men concerned on July 20th. The next day the NATALIAN was torpedoed and most of the remaining crew were lost. Reading the (probably more or less authentic) account of a court martial which never tried to establish what had really happened aboard one can easily understand why the author decided to end his story like this. Ashore were bureaucrats and aboard were civilians, trying to fight the enemy and hoping to stay alive. -- The International Journal of Maritime History, February 2010

Whereas actual engagements with enemy vessels happen to be quite few and far between [in the novel], there nevertheless remains significant tension aboard ship throughout, with a whole hose of salt encrusted characters which an ex-seafaring readership should quite easily relate to.

The events portrayed are heavily reliant upon a dialogue rich text which fortuitously adds rather than detracts from its sense of purpose, and thus retains both pace and interest, resulting in an extremely impressive narrative which can easily make this book quite difficult to put down. --The Bulletin, The Liverpool Nautical Research Society, June 2010