Ice Brothers

The bestselling World War II adventure story based on Sloan Wilson’s experiences as a Coast Guard officer on the Greenland patrol

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Paul Schuman, a college senior and summer sailor, enlists in the Coast Guard. His beautiful, mercurial wife, Sylvia, wants him to stay at home in Massachusetts, but Paul is ready for adventure and eager to serve his country. His active duty begins when, without a day of training, he is assigned to be the executive officer aboard the Arluk, a converted fishing trawler patrolling the coast of Greenland for secret German weather bases.

At the helm of the Arluk is Lieutenant Commander “Mad” Mowry, the finest ice pilot and meanest drunk in the Coast Guard. Paul has a lot to learn from his captain, but not as much as communications officer Nathan Greenberg does. A Brooklyn engineer, Nathan doesn’t know the difference between a ship’s bow and its stern.

No matter how nasty Mowry might be, Schuman and Greenberg have to pay close attention, because deadly icebergs, dangerous blizzards, and menacing Nazi gunboats lurk along the frigid Arctic coastline. Surviving the war, Schuman soon realizes, will require every ounce of courage and intelligence he possesses—and that’s before Mowry breaks down and the young officer is forced to take command of the Arluk and its crew at the worst possible moment.

A masterful blend of high drama and convincing realism, Ice Brothers is a true classic of World War II and one of Sloan Wilson’s finest novels.

Sloan Wilson (1920–2003) was born in Norwalk, Connecticut, and graduated from Harvard University. An avid sailor, he joined the US Coast Guard shortly after Pearl Harbor, and during World War II commanded a naval trawler on the Greenland Patrol and an army supply ship in the South Pacific. Wilson earned a battle star for his role in an attack by Japanese aircraft, and based his first novel, Voyage to Somewhere, and two of his later books, Ice Brothers and Pacific Interlude, on his wartime experiences. In 1955 Wilson published The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, a classic portrait of suburban ennui heralded by the Atlantic as “one of the great artifacts of popular culture in the 50’s.” It was adapted into a successful film, as was its bestselling follow-up, A Summer Place.

An author of fifteen books, Wilson was living with his wife of forty years, Betty, on a boat in Colonial Beach, Virginia, at the time of his death.