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Title: Lucky Lady: The World War II Heroics of the Uss Sante Fe and Franklin by Steve Jackson ISBN: 0786710616 Publisher: Carroll & Graf Pub. Date: January, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $28.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.67
Rating: 4
Summary: Fascinating read, but it needs a little help
Comment: Steve Jackson, in his new book Lucky Lady, has provided us with an insight not often seen into the annals of Military history. Jackson has chosen to focus on Naval history during World War II, with an emphasis on two ships that are seemingly unrelated except for their assignment into the same task forces during combat exercises.
Jackson interviewed many of the ships' crew members in order to tell their tales, and supplemented that material with official histories of the ships and their combat experiences.
I found Jackson's style of writing to be easy to read, and very descriptive of the events encountered by the crew members. I thoroughly enjoyed his style of bringing the sailors to life in the book, and explaining the grim realities of naval & air combat.
The book also gave me new insights into some of the key military players in the war - I have a different perspective now of Admiral Halsey than I did when I started the book, and Captain Gehres is a man that I had never heard of, but I now have seen an interesting perspective of the man and respect for his struggles to save his ship.
I feel that although Jackson has provided us with a strong narrative history, he sometimes repeats information that was previously written in the book. The seemingly haphazard style of bouncing between the events occuring on the two ships sometimes leads to confusion, but this is easily overcome if each chapter/section is read as a separate "tale" to be told about naval warfare in the Pacific.
I think that this is a very good book, and will interest anyone that has a desire to learn more about warfare and the men who fought on these two ships.
Rating: 5
Summary: Human war, human history
Comment: Sometimes, a lock is the key.
When Colorado author Steve Jackson found a lock of honey-colored hair buried deep in an old box his father kept from World War II, an epic story unfolded before him. The hair was his mother's - before she was his mother, or even his father's bride - and the story was the story of a generation before it became known as the "greatest generation."
Jackson's new non-fiction book "Lucky Lady" - a departure from his best-selling true-crime books such as "Rough Trade" and "No Stone Unturned" - is the story of two ships, two crews, and at its heart, the relatively few years that changed his father's life. The result: a history of men at war with all the pathos of Ernie Pyle and the historic intuition of Stephen Ambrose. All told, Jackson's account is unsentimental when it might have been maudlin, and eloquent when it might have been academic.
A Midwestern farm boy from a broken family, Donald Jackson joined the U.S. Navy before the war. He was due to muster out in 1942, but then came Dec. 7, 1941. The radioman, wearing his sweetheart's ring around his neck with his dogtags, came aboard the cruiser USS Santa Fe in 1943.
Known as the Lucky Lady because she logged the war's longest tour - 221,750 miles with stops in such exotic hotspots as Wake Island, Tarawa, Saipan and Iwo Jima -- with only two casualties and insignificant damage, the Santa Fe became her crew's guardian angel and surrogate soul.
The USS Franklin was the United States' fifth Essex-class aircraft carrier and the fifth naval vessel to carry the name - the original was a fishing boat loaned to the Continental Army in 1775 and re-named for Ben Franklin. Although "Big Ben" bore the seemingly unlucky naval designation as CV-13, she'd become World War II's most decorated naval vessel.
The Franklin and Santa Fe crossed historic paths on March 19, 1945, when a lone Japanese plane dropped two bombs on Big Ben, penetrating both the ship's bowels and brain. Dead in the water without radio contact and very little power, the Franklin was burning fast and listing badly. Worse, much of its crew had been blown overboard, killed or wounded.
With 724 killed and 265 wounded, the Franklin's surviving 106 officers and 604 crewmen valiantly tried to save the ship. Jackson recounts the heroic efforts of many of them, including eventual Medal of Honor winners Lt. Cdr. Joseph T. O'Callahan, a chaplain who administered last rites, organized firefighters and rescuers, and helped flood munition magazines before they could explode; and Lt. (jg) Donald Gary, who discovered 300 men trapped in a charred mess hall and made several trips below to lead them to safety.
The Santa Fe's crew was no less heroic as it pulled alongside to pluck sailors from the sea and cram its decks and wardrooms with the Franklin's wounded.
But "Lucky Lady" isn't just the story of inanimate steel, fuel oil, and gunpowder that make warships. It's about the men - boys, really - who are the spirit and soul of these two ships.
Through them and many others, Jackson captures not only the battle histories of two legendary ships, but the bluejacket's life, from the captain's chair to the deepest, darkest corners of the bilge-soaked hold, from boot camp ("Do you like girls, sailor?") to burial at sea. All of it is retold here through the eyes of the men who faced death and survived.
It is good to be reminded of common men's grace under fire, and that each of them enters the world stage from a place far away. Jackson's old soldiers, already fading away, help him bring this splendid, moving history to readers who will never know them.
Rating: 5
Summary: A Fascinating Read
Comment: As the son of one of the men on the Santa Fe, I had the privilege of being allowed to read the original draft of Lucky Lady. My father told many stories about the war as I was growing up, but the author was able to draw out considerably more than I ever could have from my father, as well as from many others. This book is not all guns and bayonets, but goes into the lives of the crewmembers, and to some extent, the families waiting back home. It was fascinating following the transformation of the sailors, some only teenagers, as they fought for their lives, and how their lives were forever changed by the experience. Lucky Lady is written in a way that shows how the entire generation of people changed, not just the few selected for the book.
Through the eyes of many different men on different ships, from engine rooms to airplanes, Lucky Lady makes the reader feel like a part of the crew. The rescue of and survival of the Franklin is the obvious highlight of this book, but that incident was one day of a multi-year experience. The reader shares the terror of being on a ship hit by a Kamikaze, and the sadness of watching the Marines land on an island. Even the victory of sinking a Japanese ship was not cause for celebration as the men on the surviving ships knew it could have as easily been Americans waiting to die in the water.
Regardless of your age or interest, I think everyone will enjoy Lucky Lady.
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Title: The Long Way Home: A Pacific Odyssey of Wwii by James R. Schultz ISBN: 0887391141 Publisher: Creative Arts Book Co Pub. Date: 01 August, 1996 List Price(USD): $12.50 |
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Title: Sailors to the End: The Deadly Fire on the USS Forrestal and the Heroes Who Fought It by Gregory A. Freeman ISBN: 0066212677 Publisher: William Morrow Pub. Date: 09 July, 2002 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
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Title: The Last Mission: The Secret History of World War II's Final Battle by Jim B. Smith, Malcolm McConnell ISBN: 0767907787 Publisher: Broadway Books Pub. Date: 13 August, 2002 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Capital City: New York City and the Men Behind America's Rise to Economic Dominance, 1860-1900 by Thomas Kessner ISBN: 0684813513 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: April, 2003 List Price(USD): $27.00 |
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Title: The Army of the Potomac: Birth of Command, November 1860-September 1861 by Russel H. Beatie ISBN: 0306811413 Publisher: DaCapo Press Pub. Date: 02 July, 2002 List Price(USD): $37.50 |
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