Convoglio verso l'ignoto

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>

Humphrey Bogart was a full fledged star when he made this film. Other Hollywood stars not in the military at the time including John Wayne and Errol Flynn were winning the war on screen so why not Bogart. "Action In The North Atlantic" was a natural.

Bogie Plays Joe Rossi, a first mate on a Merchant Marine freighter. The ship gets blown out of the sea and rammed by a Nazi Sub. Bogie gets a new ship, the ship gets even, and delivers their cargo to their destination(Russia of all places).

All of the typical war movie stereotypes are there. Raymond Massey in a departure from his many villainous roles of that era was the father figure Captain. The Warner Brothers Stock Company were all there led by Alan Hale, Sam Levine, and Dane Clark( who for the first time in his career used this name given to him by Bogart--previously he acted under his real name Bernard Zanville).

In addition, Ruth Gordon and Julie Bishop are there for the perfunctory wife/girlfriend scenes.

The title says it all. Except for a few scenes on land most of the film takes place on board ship. Lloyd Bacon and Raoul Walsh(uncredited)make the battle scenes realistic with the guidance of Byron Haskin.

The dialogue some of which was written by John Howard Lawson came under some controversy. In the 1950s Lawson was named as one of the Hollywood 10 and was blacklisted. As relations between the US and Russia deteriorated anti communist factions pointed to this film as pro russian.

In truth this is a one of the great WWII dramas. It is a stirring tribute to the unsung heroes of the conflict, the Merchant Marines

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 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.

From what my father described this is pretty much the way it was on the Murmansk run. My father was sunk twice on the way to Murmansk the second time with the PQ-17 convoy (The Massacred Convoy). He was Chief Engineer on the maiden voyage of the liberty ship "Daniel Morgan" and was sunk by the German U-88 on July 4th, 1942. After being picked up by a Russian tanker some three days later he and the survivors hid out behind Russian lines until he came back to Boston on The Queen Mary with hundreds of other merchant seaman that had been sunk. The day was October 15th, 1942...the day I was born.

That wasn't the last time he was sunk.