In the Western Ocean 1942 from the bridge of HMS Gladiator Lieutenant-Commander David Howards orders were chillingly clear. There could be no mercy. To the men who fought to protect the vital threatened Merchant Navy convoys in the Western Approaches the Battle of the Atlantic was a full-scale war. It was a relentless savage war against an ever-present enemy & a violent sea
- in an arena known only to its embittered survivors as the killing ground. HMS Gladiator was part of that war. He was an ordinary hard-worked destroyer & her company of men fighting for survival in a war with no rules...