* After the war, the Dutch author Jan de Hartog wrote a novel entitled The Captain, based loosely on convoy PQ-17. The hero of de Hartog’s story, the commander of one of the convoy’s escort ships, faces the same choice the captains of the British antiaircraft ships faced, but he chooses to stay with the merchant ships. He explains his decision: “If I was concerned about man’s humanity, to leave that convoy . . . to its fate in order to save my own skin would be moral suicide.”