Sea Warfare

Rudyard Kipling shares the moments of fear, suspense and courage during his two years on a British ship during WWI. True tales of trawlers and mine sweepers, submarines and ice breakers - all come to life when told in the inimitable Kipling fashion.

Here is an excerpt from the book:

There was a boat not only at, but in the mouth of a river—well home in German territory. She was spotted, and went under, her commander perfectly aware that there was not more than five feet of water over her conning-tower, so that even a torpedo-boat, let alone a destroyer, would hit it if she came over. But nothing hit anything. The search was conducted on scientific principles while they sat on the silt and suffered. Then the commander heard the rasp of a wire trawl sweeping over his hull. It was not a nice sound, but there happened to be a couple of gramophones aboard, and he turned them both on to drown it. And in due time that boat got home with everybody's hair of just the same colour as when they had started!