Sea Takes No Prisoners

The Sea Takes No Prisoners presents the voices of more than one hundred and twenty-five Royal Navy men and women recounting their days of service to Britain and the world during World War II. The stories, selected from the audio archive of the Imperial War Museums, cover a wide range of wartime experiences, including life before the war, motivations for enlisting, the rigors of training, and the experience of reporting for duty. Accounts of fear, anger, and terror are intertwined with tales of love, jokes, and fun. Recollections of life at sea run the gamut from hectic to monotonous, inspiring and frustrating, dangerous, yet also secure.

​This book invites readers to accompany these sailors as they journey from great oceans to unknown backwaters and engage, year by year, in some of the war’s most noted naval battles and campaigns. There is a chapter dedicated to the wartime contributions of the Women’s Royal Naval Service, another chapter dedicated to the Royal Navy’s Boy Seamen, and an epilogue that tells about the postwar fate of some of the ships and sailors featured in the book. The Sea Takes No Prisoners is a unique opportunity to experience life and war at sea from the perspective of those who served.