Submarine! (Bluejacket Books)

Rating:
Summary: "All ships have souls"
Review: "Submarine!", by Edward L. Beach, tells the story of several submarines of the United States Navy during World War II. The overarching narrative begins in 1942, with narrator Beach "fresh out of Submarine School." We watch Beach rise up the ranks as we learn of his fellow submariners and their ships.

Beach treats the subs as characters themselves; he notes, "All ships have souls, and all sailors know it" early in the book. He develops this theme throughout the book. The interwoven stories of the subs are arranged as chapters, each focusing on one or two ships.

Beach's prose at its best is exciting and action-packed, at times reminding me of an old-fashioned motion picture adventure serial. Yet at times he also attains an epic gravitas, and ultimately the book is quite moving. The one criticism I will make is that at times the book felt like it could have used a more judicious editorial hand; I believe that the book's 354 pages might have been reshaped into a leaner and more efficient text without sacrificing the essentials of the narrative.

I found "Submarine!" especially fascinating for the wealth of technical and tactical details that are interwoven into the adventure; it's a virtual encyclopedia of submarine information. Among the many topics covered are test diving, the use of a sub to plant a minefield, dealing with defective torpedoes, how two subs can work together to attack a target, the uses of the periscope, "silent running," and much more.

Within the book are certain chapters that really stand out, and can even stand alone as self-contained mini-epics. Among these is the story of the encounter between the U.S. sub _Archerfish_ and the Japanese supercarrier _Shinano_, a behemoth 50 times as massive as the sub. This section contains some of the book's best writing. "Submarine!" is an important and entertaining contribution to the canon of American war literature.

Rating:
Summary: Very influential and knowledgeable by a first-rate author!
Review: Commander Ned Beach started a trend which lasts today in writing the first Submarine book. All others followed his lead in style, information and just plain entertainment when they wrote about US Submarine history.

Rating:
Summary: One of the best personal accounts of WWII
Review: It has been over 30 years since I read this book, yet it is still fresh in my mind. The book is basically the personal war diary of Edward Latimer Beach as he served on various American submarines in the Pacific in World War II. He had the distinction of serving under Dick "Killer" O'Kane, one of the leading American submarine aces of the war. He was also fortunate to be transferred off the USS Trigger before she was sunk, and ended the war with his own sub (the first member of the 1939 Naval Academy Class to receive a command). The book is extremely well written, which is unusual for an "I was there" type war history. Highly recommended, and once you start reading it you will not want to put it down.

Rating:
Summary: One of the best personal accounts of WWII
Review: It has been over 30 years since I read this book, yet it is still fresh in my mind. The book is basically the personal war diary of Edward Latimer Beach as he served on various American submarines in the Pacific in World War II. He had the distinction of serving under Dick "Killer" O'Kane, one of the leading American submarine aces of the war. He was also fortunate to be transferred off the USS Trigger before she was sunk, and ended the war with his own sub (the first member of the 1939 Naval Academy Class to receive a command). The book is extremely well written, which is unusual for an "I was there" type war history. Highly recommended, and once you start reading it you will not want to put it down.

Rating:
Summary: WW II action in US Fleet Submarines
Review: This book alternates chapters between the author's personal experiences, starting as a junior officer on the Trigger, and the classic patrols of "boats" such as Wahoo, Tang, Seawolf, Batfish and a host of others. Riveting reading from someone who knows of what of he speaks!