The War Below: The Story of Three Submarines That Battled Japan

James Scott

Mai 2013 · Simon and Schuster

Über dieses E-Book

A “beautifully researched and masterfully told” account of the US submarine force that helped win World War II in the Pacific (New York Times–bestselling author Alex Kershaw).

Focusing on the unique stories of three of the war’s top submarines—Silversides, Drum, and Tang—The War Below vividly re-creates the camaraderie, exhilaration, and fear of the brave volunteers who took the fight to the enemy’s coastline in World War II. Award-winning journalist James Scott recounts incredible feats of courage—from an emergency appendectomy performed with kitchen utensils to sailors’ desperate struggle to escape from a flooded submarine—as well as moments of unimaginable tragedy, including an attack on an unmarked enemy freighter carrying 1,800 American prisoners of war.

Facing devastating odds—a submarine crewman was six times more likely to die than a sailor onboard a surface ship—these brave men accomplished their mission: Silversides, Drum, and Tang sank a combined sixty-two freighters, tankers, and transports. In retaliation, the Japanese often beat, tortured, and starved captured submariners in the atrocious prisoner of war camps.

Based on more than 100 interviews with submarine veterans and thousands of pages of previously unpublished letters and diaries, The War Below lets readers experience the battle for the Pacific as never before.

Autoren-Profil

James M. Scott is the author of Rampage, which was chosen as a finalist for the prestigious Gilder Lehrman Prize for Military History by the New York Historical Society. His other works include Target Tokyo, a 2016 Pulitzer Prize finalist, Black Snow, The War Below, and The Attack on the Liberty, which won the Rear Admiral Samuel Eliot Morison Award. Scott lives with his wife and two children in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina.