The Deep Six (novel)

The Deep Six

First edition
Author	Martin Dibner
Country	United States
Language	English
Publisher	Doubleday & Co, New York
Publication date	1953
Media type	Print
Pages	321

The Deep Six is a 1953 novel by Martin Dibner (1911-1992) describing the experiences of a group of U.S. Navy sailors fighting in the Aleutian Islands Campaign in 1943 during World War II. The novel, based on the author's experiences serving in the light cruiser USS Richmond during the same campaign, is written in a terse Hemingwayesque style and was a contemporary of Nicholas Monsarrat's novel The Cruel Sea and The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk. The novel reached the New York Times Bestseller List for the week of September 6, 1953, ranked 16th in sales, and appeared six times on the list until October 18, fluctuating between 14th and 16th.

A third person narrative, the novel is written primarily from the point of view of Alec Austen, an artist obsessed with his painting who joins the navy to escape personal conflicts at the advertising agency at which he works. He is assigned duty as an assistant gunnery officer aboard the USS Atlantis, a light cruiser identical to Richmond. The novel explores several themes, among them abuse of authority by officers; racial discrimination; the clinging of the regular navy early in the war to archaic customs and traditions which are detrimental to morale and the safety of a ship in combat; homosexual rape aboard ship; and the assignment of incompetent or marginally qualified regular officers to positions of trust and authority in an expanded wartime navy. The second half of novel covers a 36-hour period aboard Atlantis in which all the themes come to a head, culminating in a surface battle closely resembling the Battle of the Komandorski Islands.