Run Silent, Run Deep. Edward L. Beach
few reviews faulted characterization, most of them citing the character of Laura. Herbert Mitgang of the New York Times Sunday Magazine called her “a wartime dream girl [whose] outlines are never as clear as the silhouettes of the submarines.” It should be noted here that if this criticism is valid, it is one that can be applied to other writers of essentially masculine adventure who have difficulty creating believable female characters, including most notably the aforementioned Ernest Hemingway.
The book’s popularity did not end with reviewers and readers. Less than two months after publication, Run Silent, Run Deep received a different sort of testimonial to its merits. The screen rights were purchased by United Artists. And after a sustained joint promotional campaign by that company and the publisher, Henry Holt and Company, the film premiered in Washington in the spring of 1958, starring Clark Gable as Richardson and Burt Lancaster as Bledsoe. Like the novel itself, and despite some startling departures from the original text, the film was an immediate and long-lasting success. To this day it is probably the best-known motion picture about submarines ever filmed.
It is rare for a first novel to achieve such a high degree of public recognition and acceptance, and nearly unheard of for a first novel by an active-duty military officer in a demanding and responsible billet. What did Commander Edward L. Beach, United States Navy, bring to the writing that made Run Silent, Run Deep the exception?
At the beginning there was family influence and example. Edward L. Beach, Sr., was not only a professional naval officer who commanded major warships and retired as a captain but also a professor of history and the author of more than a dozen young-adult books about the navy which his son loved and, as he told a reviewer, “read . . . to shreds.” For a bright, idealistic young man growing up in a navy family those books, with their “brave and bold lads . . . always rescuing some fair damsel in distress—or thwarting some crook trying to steal the country’s secrets,” were especially influential.
Added to that formative background was Ned Beach’s own driven self. When this writer made the acquaintance of the future author, in 1938, he was the midshipman regimental commander at the Naval Academy and he ranked number two in his class. Upon graduation he received the Academy’s most coveted award for being the “midshipman contributing most to naval spirit and loyalty.” Even before commissioning, he had earned the respect and affection of peers and superiors alike.
After leaving the Academy this bright young son of a seaman fell in love with the sea, even though his first taste of it was from the bridge of an ancient destroyer on neutrality patrol in the North Atlantic. And when, two weeks after Pearl Harbor, he graduated (first in his class) from submarine school, that love of the sea was joined by an equally ardent love of submarines and the calm and silent underwater world that is their element. It is this dual passion that he brought to the writing of Run Silent, Run Deep and the three other submarine books following it (two novels, expanding Richardson’s adventures into a trilogy, and a nonfiction account of Beach’s submerged circumnavigation of the world in the nuclear submarine Triton). His passion permeates the prose of Run Silent, Run Deep, giving an almost lyrical lift and charm to the clear-cut expository style in which the story is told. Thousands of submariners had seen, heard, and felt the functional beauty of the heavy opening and closing of the main induction, the spouting of diesel exhaust rhythmically smothered to a muted bubbling by the wash of the sea, the gentle, almost sexual lift and thrust of the bow on a calm night on the surface, but no one until Ned Beach had conveyed those experiences to the reader. And no wonder. It is not often that we find a seasoned and decorated professional warrior who is not only literate but sensitive and even poetic.
And so it is indeed true that Ned Beach brought to the writing of this book, in full measure, precisely those elements Hemingway long ago prescribed as essentials to success: knowledge of his subject, seriousness about his writing, and more than a little talent. As a result, long after no man is left who can remember submarine warfare in the Pacific, Americans of other generations have only to reach for this volume to discover what it was like and what mark of man it was who fought beneath the sea when America’s life was on the line.
EDWARD P. STAFFORD
To the men of our submarine forces in the Atlantic and the Pacific who are today driving their boats down under the sea
The author makes the following grateful acknowledgments to: Ingrid, my wife, for her encouragement and thoughtful criticism;
Katie Finley, for giving so generously of her own free time to assist in the preparation of the manuscript;
Charley Langello, for his help on weekends and late at night;
Theresa Leone, who also put in late hours and in addition gave her name to one of the characters; and
Vernie M. Locke, for keeping me from forgetting the proper use of the English language.
This is a work of fiction. There is no conscious attempt to portray any actual person or character, living or dead, and any conclusions or opinions which may appear to have been reached herein are strictly original and bear no relation to Navy Department policy, past, present, or future. The submarine tactics and actions, while technically plausible, exist only in the mind of the author. Yet it would be accurate to state that Rich, Jim, Joe Blunt, and the Walrus existed many times over in the submarine forces during the war; that Laura Bledsoe and Hurry Kane have also had their counterparts; and that I have personally experienced the depth charges of Bungo Pete.
With the proviso that there have been some intentional gaps in descriptive information, the motivation, events, and action herein set forth are representative of that brave period between 1941 and 1945 when many of us unwittingly realized our highest purpose in life. To that extent, and with these qualifications, this book, though fiction, is true.
EDWARD L. BEACH
Falls Church, Virginia
January 26, 1955
Deep in the sea there is no motion, no sound, save that put there by the insane humors of man. The slow, smooth stirring of the deep ocean currents, the high-frequency snapping or popping of ocean life, even the occasional snort or burble of a porpoise are all in low key, subdued, responsive to the primordial quietness of the deep. Of life there is, of course, plenty, and of death too, for neither is strange to the ocean. But even life and death, though violent, make little or no noise in the deep sea.
U. S. NAVY DEPARTMENT
Washington, D. C.
In reply refer
to number
N/P16/2117
August 31, 1945
| From: | The Director, Broadcast and Recording Division |
| To: | The Officer-in-Charge, Security and Public Information |
| Subject: | Commander E. J. RICHARDSON, U. S. Navy; tape recording by |
| Reference: | (a) Article 1074(b) BuPers Manual |
| (b) SecNav Memo of 11 Aug. 1945 | |
| Enclosure: | (A) Transcript of subject recording |
1. A transcript of a tape recording made by Commander E. J. Richardson, U. S. Navy, who was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor on August 30, is forwarded herewith as enclosure (A).
2. It is not believed that subject recording can be of use during the forthcoming Victory War Bond Drive mentioned in reference (b) without severe condensation of the material. Subject failed to confine himself to pertinent elements of the broad strategy of the war, and devoted entirely too much time to personal trivia.
3. Subject to the foregoing comments, a verbatim transcript is forwarded for review. In accordance with provisions of reference (a), subject tape will be retained for such future disposition as may be directed.
S.