Edward Preston Young (1913–2003)

Young joined the Royal Navy at the beginning of WW II. In 1940 the Navy decided to invite a few Naval Volunteer Officers to join the submarine service. Young was one of these and quickly moved up the ranks eventually took command of his own Submarine.

The reader will learn much about serving in submarines, how a submarine works and what it is like to attack and be attacked in war. Young served in the Arctic, the Mediterranean, the Baltic and eventually the Far East. Living in a sub in the Arctic is very much different than sailing along the coast of Sumatra and he describes the differing discomforts in these two wildly different environments.

So many submarine memoirs are written by Americans that having the British point of view is refreshing. Because Young served in an American led flotilla in Australia and toured an American sub, he describes briefly the differences between British and American submarines. The latter were bigger and design to travel the greater distances of the Pacific Ocean.… (meer)