Sink the Bismarck! The Greatest Chase in Military History Book

I've "blown" through this in a couple of hours. Nothing wrong with it, except it was over too soon.
The opening paragraph is a bit over the top in its patriotic fervor, but I have to admit the subject renders itself to such a treatment. When thousands of lives are lost at sea in a matter of minutes, and when 26 ships are sunk out of a convoy of 31, it makes the reader wonder what kind of courage and dedication it takes to set sail in the face of such odds.

This is a story of the most desperate chances, of the loftiest patriotism and of the highest professional skills, of a gamble for the dominion of the world in which human lives were the stakes on the green gaming table of the ocean.

It would sound cheesy if it were not for the fact that the events described here are real. The book is 90 % documentary and 10 % fiction. Forester has a minimalist approach, doing away with most of the technical details about the battleships involved and renouncing any attempts at characterization or human interest stories. Most of the British admirals are only mentioned by title , not by name. Nothing is said about the ship commanders background or personality traits. Everything is reduced to the minimum necessary to follow the action, and this makes for a very gripping, high octane ride. Because this is one of the last battles between the giants of the sea, the Gotterdammerung of capital ships with foot thick armor that could pound each other to bits from beyond the horizon, mastodonts that would be soon made obsolete by aircraft carriers.

For all its short number of pages and underdeveloped actors, the author managed one thing very well, and that is the majesty and the perils of the Atlantic ocean:

Wind force 8, westerly. High sea running, low cloud, visibility poor. reads one despatch from the ships chasing the Bismarck. Behind these simple words Forester evokes the biting cold,the sleepless nights, the mountainous waves and the ever present danger.

Only three stars for Sink the Bismarck, and Douglas Reeman is still my favorite author for sea battle novels from WWII, but I hope I will manage to read more from Forester, probably the Hornblower books or the African Queen.