History buff or not, this is a must read.
Written: Sep 30 '03 (Updated Sep 30 '03)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: Great and insightful telling of the horrors of war.
Cons: None really.
The Bottom Line: Sometimes living to tell the tale is being the hero and this book will show you why.
|
|
|
| j.aron's Full Review: Doug Stanton - In Harm's Way: The Sinking of the U... |
War is hell and here is a window for us to see into what Dante forgot to tell us about. If you have read other reviews of In Harm's Way: The Sinking of the U. S. S. Indianapolis & the Extraordinary Story of Its Survivors by Doug Stanton, most will go over the details of what happened and how awful the sinking of this ship was. But this book is about more then just torpedoing and sinking of the ship that transported 'THE' bomb components by a Japanese submarine. It brings to light the what the whole Pacific theater was like and that it was awful. Here is the story of one bad event, Stanton lets you know that there were lots of bad events during W.W. II.
Chaos of War. When I was in school and growing up I always thought that was as some how organized. The generals knew what each other was doing, where troops and ships would be and that troops had supplies (unless they were cut off). After reading In Harm's Way, I realized that I was wrong. My eyes grew big when I read about how the U.S.S. Indianapolis was 'lost' by the book keepers after its secret mission to deliver components for the atomic bomb was completed, that things like that happened more often then we would like to think they did and that this slowed the rescue of the men from the ocean waters.
Another interesting, but more predictable, view of the chaos was brought to of how Stanton recreates the sinking of the Indianapolis. Stanton retells the events through various survivors eyes. You get a good solid feeling from each retelling of what the men were going through and what they knew what was going on, what they didn't know and what they thought was going on. I really enjoyed this way of explaining the chaos that was the 11 minutes it took for the U.S.S. Indianapolis to sink.
Pass the Blame with some Guilt. Captain McVay is the fall guy for the government in the sinking of the Indianapolis. Just or not, he is charged and court-martialed for negligence mostly due to the fact he failed to properly zigzag his ship through the ocean. Also, according to Stanton, McVay carried the gilt of the lost souls and that this led to his death. Stanton does make a strong case that the torpedo attack upon the Indianapolis and the horror of its sinking was not the fault of McVay and that he was helpless to do any thing to prevent it. I do think that this point might be slightly opinionated and biased to bring more sympathy to the memory of McVay, but since reading this book I have herd of many stories coming out of World War II that follow a similar pattern. Bad thing happens, people want someone to be blamed for it and someone is. As illustrated with McVay, sometimes blame doesn't lie with an individual but with a system that failed. So, besides having to live the remainder of his life with the guilt of having so many of his sailors die, McVay gets to be blamed for it too.
Much worse then Sharks. Sure, I first herd of the Indianapolis from the movie Jaws and after reading In Harm's Way I like them less. But the interesting point of view that Stanton brings to life is that being stranding, floating in the vastness of the ocean, lack of hope was the biggest fear. The images that Stanton creates of the shark attacks are vivid and will stick with you but the shark attacks almost become routine and hope really fades. 'Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink', Stanton describes the deadly desire to drink ocean water and the outcome of doing so, the suicides as men release themselves to the sharks or just stop lifting their faces out of the ocean. These are the images that haunt me, not the sharks.
Recommended:
Yes
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
j.aron
|
|
Location: Hot Sulphur Springs, CO, USA
Reviews written: 39
Trusted by: 15 members
About Me:
Biography being updated and cleaning up stuff from a long break from Epinions.
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.