I love war fiction
I always have
Now my soon to be 11 year old son
Shares my passion
William knows more about the Second World War
Than most grown ups
He wants to be a military historian when he is older
And Tom Palmer is one of his, our, favourite authors
We adored After The War
And have recently devoured Tom’s latest book
William tells me that the arctic convoys
Were ships travelling from Scotland to Murmansk
Delivering supplies to The Soviet Union
Our allies during the Second World War
Winston Churchill said that these convoys
Had the worst journey in the world
One particular convoy PQ-17
In July 1942
Was made up of 35 merchant ships
Sadly only 11 survived the journey
Between 1941 and 1945
3000 men and over 100 ships were lost
In the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans
Sets sail in 1943
With three friends who have grown up in Plymouth
In Naval families
And now it is their turn to serve their country on the seas
Frank, Joseph and Stephen are Royal Navy recruits
On their first mission at sea
During the Second World War
This is a story of incredible courage
A tale of friendship
A heartbreaking illustration of loss
Rooted in true stories from the arctic convoys
Arctic Star is a gripping story of survival
As three young boys face treacherous seas, freezing temperatures
And the ever present fear of enemy attack
The crew of HMS Forgetmenot
Battle sea sickness
Stormy seas
And freezing temperatures
When we first meet the boys they are chiselling ice from their ship
Frank is thrown overboard
Into the perilous icy seas
At the end of the first chapter we do not know if he will live or die
Tom Palmer writes so well about the harsh realities of war
The horrors the men faced
The unimaginable fears they faced
The obstacles they had to overcome to get through the day
Tom Palmer makes us understand the level of endurance and resilience required by these men
How unfathomably brave they were
The fear that they lived in of enemy attack
Enemy fire
Their ship being sunk
This is a wonderfully written story
And I could not read it fast enough
Though at the same time I wanted to savour every word
I liked all three of the boys in the story
Each engaging in their own way
Stephen, surviving with dry wit and jokes
Frank, always alert and observant and filled with fear
Joseph, the optimist hoping for a better brave new world after the war
Not all the boys survive the convoys
One friend holds another dead friend in his arms in the sea
Before having to leave him behind to climb aboard a rescue boat
An impossible choice to have made
The unimaginable pain of leaving a comrade, a childhood friend behind
Is beautifully written
As is the emotional scene of the boys returning to their friend’s father
To tell what had happened to his son
This is the best kind of war story
Not all blood and guts and horror
But emotive storytelling about the people who fought those battles
Faced those horrors
Who gave so much of themselves
Sacrificed themselves
For those of us who live freely today
We have attended a couple of online events with Tom Palmer
The children and I love listening to him talking about his writing process
How he researches his stories
And in Arctic Star the level and detail of his research is clear to see
He paints such detailed pictures with his words
Of life on board the ship
The men’s commitment and sense of duty
The banter
The traditions and rituals in the face of an enemy attack
The fear of what is to come
Fear of the weather
What the men ate and drank
The games that they played
Tom places the reader on the ship
To sense what the sailors experienced endured survived sacrificed
This book has stolen my heart and made me want to learn more about the arctic convoys
Much to William’s delight
Who has already been busy researching the different ships
Including the German Scharnhorst
We are now planning a William and Mummy day
To London to visit the Imperial War Museum and see HMS Belfast
This is a wonderful piece of historical fiction
And really has inspired us to learn more about the ships and convoys
But it has also really made us think about the lives of the sailors and their families
And how the war impacted on everyone
If you are yet to discover Tom Palmer’s war stories
Published by Barrington Stoke
This would be an incredibly powerful book to begin with
The story of the arctic convoys
And The Battle of the North Cape
The story of the Arctic Star
As I turned the last page of this story
I whispered my own thanks to the men who had served aboard ships
Travelling the worst journey in the world
For what they did
“… in those incredibly difficult days, incredibly difficult years, against such appalling odds. You’re real heroes.”
Thank you Tom Palmer for telling us their story
We were sent one copy of this book in exchange for an honest review