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Summary: A Separate Peace
Review: A Separate Peace is an amazing book, which explores the innermost thoughts of mankind. There is rarely a dull moment in the book. The author does an excellent job of creating a closeness with the reader and the characters. This book has many symbols in it. A Separate Peace teaches great life long lessons. Its main purpose is to show that every person fight a war within themselves and they spend their lives defending themselves against this inner enemy. These inner changes take place regardless of what is happening in the world. I would highly reccomend this book to all teenagers, but guys specifically.
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Summary: An Exceptional Individual Saving Men in Undersea Frontier
Review: After the loss of the Kurst a few years ago, there was an occasional mention of Lt Swede Momsen and all this very rare individual brought to the US Navy. Peter Maas does an excellent job of documenting Swede's contribution in rescuing the sailors from the Squalus in 1939. Momsen was responsible for the Navy's pioneering work with mixed gas deep water breathing, inventing a breathing apparatus for sailor to make free ascendants and developing the diving bell to save men from stranded submarines. Each one of the sailor who got off the Squalus can thank the remainder of the lives for Momsen for not giving up in the face of the Navy bureaucracy. One comes away from this book with an even higher level of respect for all those sailors endured during those terrible hours. An easy read that will keep your attention from beginning to end.
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Summary: The Terrible Hours a good book
Review: I found this book so interesting I didn't want to put it down. The story was amazing with attention paid to the suspense, the drama, the tragedy and the personal tales of the sailors who were part of it all. I was emotionally involved with the story and would count Swede Momsen as a hero of the Navy and our country. Maas' efforts to acquire for Momsen the recognition he deserves are flawlessly executed as an undercurrent to the story and a prologue. A fantastic read.
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Summary: The Terrible Hours
Review: I like the way that Peter Maas wrote the book cause you feel like you're in it by all the details in the book. But, I thought it was bad for all the men to go down, but I thought it was cool that all but one was rescued in the sub. It was a long time for them and it was not cool that they when down cause of the vents in the Squalas because the Christmas tree board. It was the best rescue under water ever in history. I thought it was a god idea that Momsen came up with the suit but, they didn't use that they used a chamber and brought and got all them men air before so, that they could live longer so, that they could be rescue I thought it was amazing that they got the sub and men back and the sub, back the work just under name Sailfish and not under the Squalas. So, I thought it a 4 Star book for history people to read.
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Summary: Gripping True Story of an Amazing Man and an Amazing Rescue
Review: If I did not know that this was a true story, I would have believed that Peter Maas wrote a great fiction submarine novel. What the men of the Squalus endured on that submarine, coupled with the genius of Momsen's rescue inventions and the efforts of the Falcon crew, made a gripping true story tale. Peter Maas summed it up best when he referenced to Momsen as a modern era hero. The battles that he fought to overcome the status quo of the Navy with respect to submarine warfare; both in his rescue operations and his WWII or post-WWII efforts, truly render him such. Peter Maas' retelling of the story of the Squalus is a short read, but well worth it. If you enjoyed Hunt for Red October, you will love this book. And this one is real.
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Summary: Swede Momsen's story, at last!
Review: If you followed the Russian submarine incident with interest, you must read Peter Maas' book "Terrible Hours". In the year 2000, Russian submariners perished while the whole world watched and waited. In the year 1939, an American submarine, disabled and sitting on the bottom in 250 feet of water, was located and its crew rescued, thanks to the determination and guts of one Swede Momsen. Maas does an excellent job bringing to light the early days of American submarine warfare and his portrayal of the pioneer days of underwater rescue is fascinating. The US Navy wasn't very kind to Momsen in his day. Maas notes that Momsen's efforts to develop and test rescue techniques and equipment were actually frowned upon by the brass. Momsen's accomplishments were achieved mainly on the sly and at great personal and professional risk. "Terrible Hours" is truly a must read, not only for those interested in submarines and submarine history, but for anyone moved by the gripping human drama of crewmen trapped on the ocean floor, waiting, waiting for that tap on the hull.
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Summary: A Gripping Tale of Heroism and Survival
Review: In May of 1939, The U.S.S Squalus, the Navy's newest submarine, was finishing her trials off the East Coast when something went terribly wrong. A hatch which was shown to be closed on the sub's control pannel was left open and thousands of gallons of water poured into the submarine as she was executing a test dive. The sub plunged to a depth of over two hundred feet. Thirty three men out of a crew of fifty nine survived as the sub landed on the bottom, but no crewmen had ever been rescued from such a depth. "Swede" Momsen, the developer of the Momsen lung and the submarine rescue chamber, was summoned by the Navy to assist in the rescue. It is in this part of the book where Maas does his best work. He tells Momsen's story with brilliant detail and puts the reader on the deck as the brave divers attempt to attach the diving chamber to the deck of the Squallus. Due to the heroic efforts of Momsen and his crew, the thirty three survivors are eventually rescued. But Momsen's work didn't end here. These same men also accomplished the amazing feat of actually raising the Squallus to the surface and returning her to port. This book describes in great detail the story of Swede Momsen and his heroic group of divers, who, despite over 600 individual dives, did not lose a single diver. This book also points out Momsen's other contributions to the submarine community, such as the development of wolfpacks, where a group of three submarines hunted enemy shiping as a group, and the correction of the faulty torpedo detonators which failed to explode. Swede Momsen had a huge part in the development of the American submarine fleet, and this excellent book is a fitting tribute to him and his brave men. I highly recommend this excellent book to anyone who enjoys submarines or good old fashioned heroism and courage.
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Summary: Swede Momsen Made Sub Rescue Possible
Review: In this enjoyable nonfiction account, Peter Maas tells the story of Swede Momsen's life's work in making it possible to rescue trapped submariners; and how this work was successfully applied to the unfortunate sailors on the Squalus in 1939.
Although subs of the day did not actually go that deep (Maas makes the point that the sailors could be trapped in water no deeper than the distance from Home to Second Base), when misfortune occured there was nothing anyone could do until Swede Momsen came along. Momsen invented the Momsen lung and the diving bell and pioneered the use of inert gas along with Oxygen as a diving mixture. His personally trained divers were able to use these tools to retrieve the sailors of the Squalus, and ultimately the submarine itslef.
Maas does a good job of alternating between the plight of the sailors on the Squalus and telling us the story of how Momsen was inspired to come up with his innovations. Recommended for anyone who enjoys true life adventure stories and inspiring tales of invention.
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Summary: Swede Momsen and the Rescue and Salvage of the USS Squalus
Review: Peter Maas, an ex-Navy man himself, has done a masterful job with this recounting of the U.S. Navy's greatest prewar submarine disaster. Written in a matter-of-fact style, he takes us through the sinking and salvage of the Squalus in the days when deep-ocean diving was in its infancy. He also acquaints us with a man whose work in underwater operations is at least as important as that of Jacques Cousteau, Commander Charles "Swede" Momsen. The rescue of the Squalus's survivors and her subsequent salvaging by Momsen and his dive unit is only half the story. The rest of it concerns Momsen's determination to insure that the tragedies of the S-4 and the S-51, lost with all hands in peacetime accidents with their crews unable to escape from their sunken boats, would not be repeated if he could help it. Helium-oxygen diving gas, rescue chambers, the first self-contained underwater breathers using heli-ox, the first attempts to provide submariners with emergency rescue breathers, all are products of Momsen's fertile mind and driving personality. His impact on the Navy is still felt today, including in modern submarine design. In his own way, Swede Momsen's influence on submarines is as important as that of Mush Morton, the wartime sub skipper sans peur. I can recommend this book unreservedly to anyone interested in submarines, ocean salvage, deep-sea diving, or page-turning sea stories. It's worth the reader's time to learn of this unsung American hero and his work.
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Summary: Unabridged audio - poor narrator
Review: The story is great, but the narrator of the unabridged audio is not. His misplaced emphasis and intonation are very distracting -- instead of listening to the story, I keep noticing the poor narration. This is a dense enough story, with many characters, that it would have been a little difficult to listen to anyway. But of the 15-20 audiobooks I've listened to, this had the worst narrator.
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