One of the best tours to do in London is through the Imperial War Museums, a testament to photos, newsreels, and objects from a hauntingly lost world. There are not many of that time alive among us. For a time scale, thinking about World War II in 2020 is similar to thinking about the Napoleonic wars during the fall of 1942.
However, there is seldom a more powerful feeling than a war history student might feel walking the narrow decks of HMS Belfast moored next to the Tower Bridge on the Thames, imagining what it would have felt like on a windy and windy night. wet 80 years ago. . No fictional horror will compare to surviving a slippery deck on a warship guarding supply convoys sailing from the Americas to Britain during a stormy night in the mid-Atlantic, chased by herds of German submarine wolves.
Tom Hanks is the only person who could have made you feel that same feeling while paralyzed on a screen, and he did. Based on CS Forrester’s “The Good Shepherd” (1955) was supposed to be released on the big screen but, as with all this hellish year, it was eventually delayed and released on the Apple TV broadcast.
That is a tragedy, because this is perhaps one of the best movies of the Battle of the Atlantic. It’s also a time that, for some reason, doesn’t have many good movie performances.
In any case, good naval war movies are rare. Modern war movies fall into three categories: first, direct heroic “hit after a fall” movies, such as “Pearl Harbor” and “Midway”; second, a strong focus on human emotions, such as “Hurt Locker” and “Dunkerque”; third, the classics.
Your heroes are men like you and me, our parents and uncles, often middle-aged, tinged with episodes of self-doubt and enough stoic cynicism that comes with graying temples and possibly an early onset of mild rheumatism. The stories often last a short time, not a great adventure story, but one of true heroism, tight survival, and tough resistance. “Master and Commander”, “The Hunt for Red October”, “The Guns of Navarone”, “The Cruel Sea” and “Sink the Bismarck” are worthy predecessors of this particular rhetorical genre, for which “Greyhound” is perfect addition.
“Greyhound” is the story of Captain Ernest Krause, a God-fearing patriotic American on his first active convoy escort service, bringing supplies, food, medicine, fuel and weapons to the Old World. Its Fletcher-class destroyer, the USS Keeling, whose call sign is Greyhound, is accompanied by two British warships and an American rescue ship, the USS Chain.
These four ships guard a convoy of around 40 supply and oil tankers from Canada and the United States. Without these daily supplies, Britain would starve and the Nazis would take over all of Europe and the British Empire. That, in turn, would give them enough manpower and resources to dominate the entire world without question.
Millions of soldiers, as well as British civilians, depended on these rations. There is, of course, a stretch of sea that lacks direct aerial coverage from the American and Canadian bombers, and the Royal Airforce. And it is in that space, during a period of 36 hours, that the German submarines “pack of wolves” hunt.
Krause is a character who once formed the backbone of civilization, and still does so in some way. His doubts haunt him. He prays twice a day. Forgets to eat during pressure. He is reserved to show emotions in public, since that is not civilized for a man. He cares about his crew and sailors like his children, but often cannot express it in words.
His sailors, also of the same generation, revere and trust him as his father, even when they have doubts about his experience. But most importantly, it is not ideological enough to understand that the claustrophobic Germans who find an abyssal grave are also parents, husbands, and children moving through the cruel cycle of fate.
The great competitions of power take place due to structural reasons, and those men who have the misfortune to be born in times of epoch change have to get up and walk for faith, the flag and the family. It’s what makes Forrester’s books so great, and it’s something our leaders used to know, even during the Cold War.
The average millions of Russians, Germans, Australians, British, Indians, Canadians, and Americans are just that: average men, answering a greater call to sacrifice. Most barely understand the circles of history, nor are they capable of changing it. That is what he did to our humble and stoic ancestors.
To see that represented is anachronistic in an era in which nothing but feelings and complaints are considered important. There is no greater unifying cause than fighting for your flag in a high-powered, multi-polar existential war in which your own way of life is at stake. Without a unifying national narrative, society falls apart into tribes and is vulnerable to quacks and subversives.
There are some cinematic mistakes. Warships do not fire at the sides when there is another friendly warship on the line; Every ship and every soul counts, and there’s no room for mistakes or bravado like that.
German submarines generally avoided entering the middle of a convoy, because any submarine would be concerned with being surrounded and loaded deep into oblivion, so they generally sniped from the outer edges and fled.
After the sinking of the largest German battleship, Bismarck, there were no more German surface challenges for the Royal and American navies, and the submarines were there to do maximum damage to the supply lines, not engaging in a shooting war with the very Anglo – American surface fleets.
The entire plot with Elisabeth Shue is understandable, but it could have been avoided. “Master and Commander” had no female cameos or roles, and remains the best naval war movie ever made.
However, “Greyhound” is a magnificent cinematic experience, a well-told story, of an era that is still formative for our modern era, and of men, like those who sadly decline every day. You may receive terrible criticism; Modern film critics will understand nothing about this unless human emotions are force-fed.
But normal people will like it, because they can identify with the characters here. If, God forbid, our world reaches another point of reference in History, they will be the ones who will rise up as silent heroes of such stories.
Sumantra Maitra is a doctoral researcher at the University of Nottingham, UK, and a senior contributor to The Federalist. Her research is on great political power and neorealism. You can find him on Twitter @MrMaitra.
