The Battle of Britain pilots in WW2 - The few to whom so much is owed by so many' - are rightly revered and eulogised for their courage and heroic defence of their nation. But it is one thing to do battle with the enemy on equal terms, with a well equipped fighting machine, quite another to face that same enemy on a hostile ocean with little or no means to defend one's self.
The unsung heroes of the Fourth Service, the Merchant Navy, have in comparison, received scant recognition for their 'Battle of Britain' - the contribution they made to keeping Britain's ocean life-lines open. They delivered the raw materials that enabled the wheels of industry to keep turning and the food to feed the nation, and took the troops and their supplies and weaponry to their battlefields throughout the threatened world.
Their 'Battle of Britain' started from the moment the 'Athenia' was sunk by a German U-boat on the third of September, less than nine hours after the nation was told that a state of war existed with Germany, and continued unabated for six long years. Every minute that a ship was at sea, and often even when they were in port, the crew faced the danger of attack from U-boats, warships, raiders, mines and aircraft ? and frequent reminders from the elements that the sea was not their natural domain.
Deep Their Grave is a story about one such vessel, a peace-time passenger ship converted to a troop carrier, and her crew on a single fateful voyage. The m.v. Patriarch sailed from Bristol in 1942, at a time when the enemy was sinking, on average, an Allied ship every four hours and the prospect of the crew returning safely to their homes and families was, statistically, not good. Seamanship of the highest order would not, alone, be sufficient to guarantee their safety, for this was a time when Britain's 'darkest hour' loomed ominously close.