During World War II, Britain's Royal Navy has to expand more than sevenfold, in the faces of the threat of invasion, enemy bombing and the need to carry out campaigns all around the world. To find officers for this force it had to move well outside its normal supply of boys trained from the age of 13. It started by recruiting yachtsmen and giving them a smattering of naval discipline before sending them to sea. Then it sent possible officers into action as ordinary seamen, to live a hard and dangerous life in destroyers. Selected men were then given their officer training in three months in an improved seaside base at Brighton. They sailed as officers in all kinds of ships, but especially in the new landing craft which would invade North Africa, Italy and Normandy. Those appointed to escort vessels in the Battle of the Atlantic came under the fearsome gaze of Commodore Stephenson, the 'Terror of Tobermory' before being sent out on convoy escort. This book looks at the social backgroun