Action in the North Atlantic

This film was so meaningful to me. My grandmother's first cousin, Alexander Miller MacKinnon 19, drowned during a March 1942 attack while serving in the Merchant Marine.

He was aboard the "Colabee," having just left Cuba with a load of sugar for Baltimore. 10 miles out they were hit by the German submarine U-126. 23 dead, 14 survivors. Ironically the U-126 was itself destroyed the following year with no survivors.

As a child in 1940s Buffalo all our windows were carefully covered with black-out shades each evening. I heard the adults whispering that this was in case the Germans came up the St. Lawrence to the Great Lakes but we did not really know U-Boats were operating so close to our shores.

A year earlier Alex had been assigned to the SS Santa Elisa, hauling sugar cane from Chile to New York, arriving Christmas Eve 1941. But on the return trip to Chile in January 1942 the Santa Elisa was attacked, just as she left NYC carrying crates of safety matches and barrels of highly explosive carbide crystals. She was then towed back to the Brooklyn Yard for repairs. Which is why Alex was aboard the Colabee.

After being refitted the Santa Elisa set out to carry gasoline from England to Malta as part of Churchill's 62 vessel Operation Pedestal. That August 1942 she was attacked a second time and torpedoed by Italian motorboats, the gasoline caught fire and she went up in flames off of Tunisia. (One account says no survivors; official MM record states no deaths.)

Many parts of the movie show what our Merchant Marine was really going through. Yet it wasn't until 1988 that President Reagan signed the bill conferring Veteran status on all mariners who served in WWII, guaranteeing their benefits.

The term "propaganda" has taken on a very negative connotation, though propaganda can also be a very positive thing--encouraging the masses through logical and/or emotional appeals to get on the bandwagon on a certain topic. In this case, the effort was noble--encouraging people to understand why we were fighting the Axis powers as well as drumming up their support. Now these types of films were made in the hundreds in the USA during the war and many of them are pretty forgettable. However, this might just be one of the very best due to its magnificent writing and acting. Plus, in many ways it's similar to the British wartime film IN WHICH WE SERVE (1942)--but I think that ACTION IN THE NORTH Atlantic is actually a bit better film. Much of this is because the acting is at least equal to the British film (Humphrey Bogart and Raymond Massey versus Noel Coward and John Mills in the 1942 film) and the story is a bit more exciting in ACTION IN THE NORTH Atlantic. Plus, I admired how the often forgotten men of the merchant marine were shown to be heroes--after all, a lot of them died transporting supplies to Britain during the war.

Both films excelled because unlike some jingoistic wartime films, the Allies were NOT shown as super-humans who could do ridiculous things (like in the movie AIRFORCE where a B-17 shoots down fighter plane after fighter plane--something that just could never have happened). In fact, both films feature ships being sunk right out from under the stars in the first half hour of the film! But here's where the films really succeeded, as they showed the indomitable human spirit that despite losses, continues to bravely and without too much complaint do their job. Balancing this need with the families back at home make these both stellar films. In fact, now that I think about it, I STRONGLY recommend you see both. Yes, they are similar, but also different enough to provide a lot of entertainment and wonderful insight into our history.

Raymond Massey and Humphrey Bogart as captain and first mate of a merchant marine ship, see their first ship sunk by a German U-boat. They get a second ship and with some of their surviving crew from the first ship join an international convoy taking supplies to the Soviet Union.

From Halifax to Murmansk quite a flotilla of merchant ships from a whole lot of countries that had declared war on the Axis. The convoy was something like a sea going wagon train which was developed because individual ships were easy prey for submarines. The seagoing wagon train got a destroyer escort and they were armed now as well.

The merchant seaman were not technically part of the armed forces. But that didn't mean they weren't seeing a lot of action as Action in the North Atlantic so clearly demonstrates. Bad enough when the Lend lease was to Great Britain, but when we became allies with the Soviets the only places it could go were the ports of Murmansk and Archangel when they were ice free. That meant a voyage along the long Norwegian coast line which was occupied by Germany.

Bogart and Massey give strong portrayals of dedicated merchant seaman whose life is tough enough in peace time. But they certainly have the right stuff in time of war. Some of the crew of their ship is Dane Clark, Sam Levene, Peter Whitney, and Alan Hale who really steals every scene he's in.

Action in the North Atlantic is filled with a lot of the flag waving that characterized Hollywood era World War II films. The derring do heroics are kept to a minimum. The situations the seaman encounter are quite real for the perilous undertaking they were involved in.

It could probably be remade today and maybe with some of today's stars showing a new generation what it was like to be a merchant seaman in World War II>

These were battles that saw merchant ships attacked, across the seas like fish in barrels they were tracked, a hidden foe that fought with stealth, their aim to sink the allies wealth, deploying tactics that were tough to counteract. In convoys odds of sinking were reduced, but on occasion isolation was induced, like a lamb that leaves the flock, you were open to be shot, but wise thinking often generates a boost. At its heart there is a little propaganda, encouraging those free to join and clamber, to ride the waves of victory, sailing logistics over sea, there was no reason to abstain, as a bystander.

This comparatively little-known film should have done for the Merchant Sailors of WWII what "The Cruel Sea" did for the image of the Royal Navy. The men who sailed the convoy ships were treated appallingly by the owners of the vessels they crewed, who indeed where quick to institute "retroactive stoppage of pay" clauses upon receiving word of a ship's being lost. They also were subject to verbal --even physical-- abuse by their own countrymen, who routinely mistook them for "Service Shirkers". "Action" is one of the few films that gives them their due.

This film is remarkable on many counts. Not only is the acting rock solid, and the story in itself a fine "sea saga", but the director has managed to avoid many potential pitfalls thrown into in his path by the War (Propaganda?) Department. The obligatory leave-taking scenes are touching, but not maudlin; the even more obligatory "speech-making" is impassioned, but never embarrassingly so. And the Enemy is portrayed as a thoroughly competent if ruthless professional, as dedicated to his own trade as the convoy Sailors are to theirs. (I for one did not find the lack of English "subtitles" a problem --I could pretty well figure out what the U-Boat skipper and his crew were up to.)

To repeat my opening comments,-- this film, though not as well-circulated as "The Cruel Sea", certainly should rank as its equal.