Excellent telling of a less prominent part of the allied war effort. Superbly told. ( )

I went out and found a copy of this book based on hearing that the author had designed the iconic Penguin Books logo. A very enjoyable read, does a great job of explaining most jargon as it goes. ( )

Young joined the Royal Navy at the beginning of WW II. In 1940 the Navy decided to invite a few Naval Volunteer Officers to join the submarine service. Young was one of these and quickly moved up the ranks eventually took command of his own Submarine.

The reader will learn much about serving in submarines, how a submarine works and what it is like to attack and be attacked in war. Young served in the Arctic, the Mediterranean, the Baltic and eventually the Far East. Living in a sub in the Arctic is very much different than sailing along the coast of Sumatra and he describes the differing discomforts in these two wildly different environments.

So many submarine memoirs are written by Americans that having the British point of view is refreshing. Because Young served in an American led flotilla in Australia and toured an American sub, he describes briefly the differences between British and American submarines. The latter were bigger and design to travel the greater distances of the Pacific Ocean. ( )

This was Penguin #1000. But it is also the best of the royal Navy Memoirs from the Submariners. Young served mostly aboard HMS Storm, an S Class in the Mediterranean, and the fact that it lasted long enough for him to command it was high praise. He was in Storm from midshipman to commander. The book has good writing as well as tech and campaign information. © 1954, ( )

This was the 1000th Penguin and at the end of the book has a retrospective article on the development of Penguin Books.