The Royal Navy destroyer H.M.S. Torrin is sunk by German bombers. Several survivors cling to a raft and their thoughts flashback to the years that had brought them there. I was horrified to see the bombers come back again and again to strafe the survivors.

I must admit that I had a hard time keeping the characters straight, probably because none of the actors were familiar to me.  The story came through nevertheless. My favorite scenes were when one seaman thought back to the ship’s participation in the Dunkirk evacuation. As the men who were rescued from the disaster in France came off the ship, each one who was wounded was personally met by a nurse and escorted away for medical attention.  Many of these men were not actors but actual soldiers.

“In Which We Serve” is a real look at what the British people were going through.  It came out at a time when no one knew how long this war would go on and how it would all end.

Update July 12, 2011: I am listening to the audiobook of Jon Meacham’s Franklin and Winston. On October 23, 1942, in Buckingham Place, Eleanor Roosevelt, the Churchills, and the royal family watched this movie together!  This movie was inspired by what happened to Lord Mountbatten, and he was present at this screening.

“It was a novel experience to watch a movie about a man who was himself present,” Eleanor recalled,” and a very moving to see it in the company of people who must have been deeply stirred by it.”

(Watching the newsreel of Hitler in Paris) He’s got France now, and France is only twenty miles from England. Makes you think, don’t it?

In Which We Serve at amazon.com

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