Randall Peffer
Auteur de Lonely Planet : Puerto Rico
A propos de l'auteur
Randall Peffer teaches literature and writing at Phillips Academy/Andover.
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Œuvres de Randall Peffer
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- Sexe
- male
- Professions
- travel guide writer
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Statistiques
- Œuvres
- 18
- Aussi par
- 1
- Membres
- 373
- Popularité
- #64,664
- Évaluation
- 3.8
- Critiques
- 4
- ISBN
- 57
This book is about the US Navy during the WWII era. I don’t know a lot about naval operations but just the basics of military history from some books I’ve collected and places I’ve visited. This narrative chronicles the USS Leopold (namesake was a sailor killed in action on Pearl Harbor December 7th) which was torpedoed in the off of Iceland. The book does not address why the convoy was in the area other than to say it was the mission to supply the UK. These missions were suicide missions with U-boats lying in wait to sink any cargo and munitions ships traveling with or without destroyer escorts. The Leopold was a destroyer escort. Leaving that stupidity of the mission aside (ships could have landed on the western part of England and moved the materiel east by rail) the book goes into accurate detail and best of all explaining all the nautical terms and naval orientation to understand what was going on. This was a very sad episode in the war, 1944. The war in the European Theatre was nearing its culmination with Hitler’s marriage & suicide in his Berlin bunker). The Americans had won the war but the German army and navy were still fighting because that’s what Hitler felt militaries should do. They must give their lives for the autocrat dictator. In hindsight, this tragedy of the Leopold should never have happened but due to political factors which the book does not go into, thankfully, the naval episode is forgotten in the expected VE-day celebrations. This book aims to memorialize the lost sailors from the ship and the few survivors who managed miraculously to live. The book’s author also gives generous attention to the actions of the U-boat crew who sunk the Leopold. There is a very good preface by a Coast Guard Admiral about the history of the Coast Guard and its absorption into the Navy during WWII. A very sympathetic read of young US sailors trying to do their part in saving the world from oppression. This book links up with the HMS Hood’s battle with the Bismarck (WWII), the Hood also sinking under mysterious circumstances.
B&W Photos, Index, Bibliographical Sources.… (plus d'informations)