Desert Sailor: Growing up in the Pacific Fleet 1941-1946
This sailor's memoir leads from the U.S. Navy's peacetime "Pineapple Fleet" in Pearl Harbor to a secret convoy transporting the "Flying Tigers" to Asia. After the disaster at Pearl Harbor, his ship raids Japanese bases in the central Pacific. He watches Doolittle's bombers take off from the Hornet to bomb Tokyo, then proceeds to the carrier air battles of Midway and Santa Cruz. At Guadalcanal he is wounded when his ship sinks. From hospitals in New Zealand he moves to New Guinea, then to a destroyer at Okinawa, shooting at kamikazes. Post-war service in China and Japan round out his story.
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