Run Silent, Run Deep

Run Silent, Run Deep is a novel by Commander (later Captain) Edward L. Beach Jr. published in 1955 by Henry Holt & Co.Run Silent, Run Deep is also the name of a 1958 film of the same name starring Clark Gable and Burt Lancaster. The story describes World War II submarine warfare in the Pacific Ocean, and deals with themes of vengeance, endurance, courage, loyalty and honor, and how these can be tested during wartime. The name refers to "silent running", a submarine stealth tactic.

It was the first of Beach's 13 novels. He told an interviewer that writing, for the most part, came easily:

Things have to happen, one thing happens after another. All of a sudden you come to an impasse, damn it, and you throw it away and start over again. The subs [Submarine!, 1952, nonfiction] I did okay, but writing about women–I never had so much trouble in my life as with this one.

The novel was on The New York Times Book Review list for several months. The staff of the New York Times Book Review included it on their list of 250 Outstanding Books of the Year. Beach served on submarines in the Pacific Ocean during the war, and this adds to the realism of the story. He composed two sequels to Run Silent, Run Deep: Dust on the Sea (1972), a third person narrative detailing later patrols of the Eel; and Cold is the Sea (1978), about the same protagonist's later service on a nuclear-powered submarine in 1960.

Run Silent, Run Deep proved to be the best known of Beach's novels.

The narrative is presented as the transcript of a Navy tape recording made by Commander Edward J. Richardson, recounting the events resulting in his receipt of the Medal of Honor. The prefatory note that purports to identify the text in this way says it was meant to be used in a war bond drive, but is unsuitable for that because Richardson "failed to confine himself to pertinent elements of the broad strategy of the war, and devoted entirely too much time to personal trivia."

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