Riders upon the Storm

A young officer leads his inexperienced crew in the dangerous game of hunting U-boats and sinking German mines in the English Channel in the last months of World War I.

Phillip Parotti’s new novel chronicles the fast-paced action of a collection of American submarine chasers as they battle to reduce the German U-Boat menace in the English Channel during the last year of World War I. Lieutenant (junior grade) Ben Snow takes a commission in the United States Naval Reserve, and whips a dissolute crew into fighting shape. They then take their little submarine chaser, SC 65X, out into the English Channel to hunt for German U-boats in the midst of the worst winter in more than fifty years. Their achievements climax with the sinking of a German submarine and taking sixteen of her crew prisoner. When the war ends on 11 November 1918, the chaser crews expect to return home, but their exposure to danger is by no means concluded. Instead, the chasers are tasked with exploding the 70,000 dangerous mines planted in the North Sea Mine Barrage. Having survived the war, will Ben and his crew survive the peace?