Sea Prison and Shore Hell: The Cruise of the Raider Atlantis, From the Diary of John Creagh, Merchant Seaman by Roy Alexander

Book Description

Secondhand. Good condition. Ex library copy with external sticker and stamps to inside pages. Wear to book corners and edges. Sunning to foredges. Dust jacket has creasing and small tears at edges. Enclosed in protective plastic cover.

This book is based on the diary of John Creagh, a young Sydney man working his passage to England with the hope of going minesweeping. His ship was picked up in the Indian Ocean by the German raider Atlantis.

The story's most disquieting and exasperating feature is that Craegh's ship, Commissaire Ramel, was the victim of treachery in Australia. When the Atlantis was overtaken on September 20, 1940, the Ramel knew when it had sailed from Fremantle and its course. There had been at least one traitor on board the Atlantis.

Creagh and 263 other crew were prisoners of war, ending up in Italian Somaliland. (The Australasian Saturday, 15 August 1942)