Argentia Station (Tides of War)
Four submariners are fresh out of the Naval Academy in 1939, and each is taking a different journey. Alistair MacLean travels on S-55 to the Philippines. Fred Wurster learns to recognize U-boat sonar sounds and serves as Supply Officer on the S-52. Brad Johnson falls under the watchful eye of an FBI agent for possibly cavorting with a known Nazi agent. Stan Ward overcomes a disability, joins the Submarine Patrol Force intelligence service, tracks the paths of U-boats, and deciphers code. Yet three of the men end up stationed out of Argentia Naval Base, Newfoundland, just as Winston Churchill and Franklin Delano Roosevelt are holding the Atlantic Conference aboard the cruiser Augusta and the HMS Prince of Wales battleship.
Argentia Station is first in the two-book Tides of War series. It centers on the on- and under-the-sea actions preceding the Atlantic Conference and the risky approaches of the two vessels on U-boat patrolled seas.
The novel takes readers through day-to-day naval operations the ensigns are learning—orders that get the sub underway and the crooked hat appearance of stars that plot location—and arctic environmental encounters they experience for the first time, such as ice-calving.
The series of quick, back and forth scenes from one character to another set up the don’t-know-what’s-coming-next page-turner. But, at least for this reader, there is little emotional connection to characters who don’t have time to ponder but must act quickly to situations thrust upon them. The ride is certainly action-packed, but happens more on the surface than through a deep dive.
