The Ship That Wouldn't Die: The Saga of the USS Neosho: A World War II Story of Courage and Survival at Sea - Tapa dura

Críticas

Praise for Don Keith's works of military history

"Riveting....[Keith] writes in an engaging you-are-there style calculated to bring the reader to the edge of his seat."--"Mobile Press-Register"
"Keith will inform and please both the rank newcomer to the subject and the well-read expert."--"Booklist"
"Breathes life into the heroic submarine's Pacific saga...gripping."--John Wukovits, author of "American Commando" and "Eisenhower"
Praise for Don Keith's works of military history
"Riveting....[Keith] writes in an engaging you-are-there style calculated to bring the reader to the edge of his seat."--"Mobile Press-Register"

"Keith will inform and please both the rank newcomer to the subject and the well-read expert."--"Booklist"

"Breathes life into the heroic submarine's Pacific saga...gripping."--John Wukovits, author of "American Commando" and "Eisenhower"

Most accounts of the Battle of the Coral Sea treat the attack on Neosho as a footnote Author Don Keith takes a different angle, sticking with Neosho, Sims, and their crews as they battle the Japanese and then the cruel sea and blistering sun. The story is replete with heroic endurance and selflessness but also human failings and miscues. Keith doesn t airbrush the inglorious. Instead, he balances all elements to construct a satisfying narrative with deep human interest and cliffhanger appeal. World War II magazine
Keith made me feel as though I was watching [the battle] in real time worth the price of admission for the serious historian as well as those who just like a good yarn. Naval Historical Foundation"

Reseña del editor

An acclaimed naval historian tells one of the most inspiring sea stories of World War II: the Japanese attack on the American oiler USSNeosho and the gutsy crew’s struggle for survival as their slowly sinking ship driftedlost, defenseless, and aloneon the treacherous Coral Sea.

In May 1942, Admiral Jack Fletcher’s Task Force 17 closed in for the war’s first major clash with the Japanese Navy. TheNeosho, a vitally important tanker capable of holding more than 140,000 barrels of fuel, was ordered away from the impending battle. Minimally armed, she was escorted by a destroyer, theSims. As the Battle of the Coral Sea raged two hundred miles away, the ships were attacked by Japanese dive bombers. Both crews fought valiantly, but when the smoke cleared, theSims had slipped beneath the waves, and the Neosho was ablaze and listing badly, severely damaged from seven direct hits and a suicide crash. Scores of sailors were killed or wounded, while hundreds bobbed in shark-infested waters. Fires on board threatened to spark a fatal explosion, and each passing hour brought the ship closer to sinking. It was the beginning of a hellish four-day ordeal as the crew struggled to stay alive and keep their ship afloat, while almost two hundred men in life rafts drifted away without water, food, or shelter. Only four of them would survive to be rescued after nine days.

Working from eyewitness accounts and declassified documents, Keith offers up vivid portraits of Navy heroes: theNeosho’s skipper, Captain John Phillips, whose cool, determined leadership earned him a Silver Star; Lieutenant Commander Wilford Hyman, skipper of theSims, who remained on his vessel’s bridge throughout the attack and made the ultimate sacrifice to try to save his ship; Seaman Jack Rolston, who pulled oil-soaked survivors out of the water and endured days adrift in an open life raft; and Chief Watertender Oscar Peterson, whose selflessness saved the lives of innumerable shipmates and earned him a posthumous Medal of Honor.

A tale of a ship as tough and resilient as its crew, The Ship That Wouldn’t Die captures the indomitable spirit of the American sailorand finally brings to the surface one of the great untold sagas of the Pacific War.