Author Bill Bowers made his career working with the Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Cos. of Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia. Starting on June 18th, 1941, in Arlington, Virginia, as a Frame Man, he progressed to Power Man, then Central Office Repairman, working in Arlington, Falls Church and and Alexandria, Virginia. He was married on December 4, 1942, to Lillian Bernice Felton of Arlington. Bill joined the navy May 18th 1944 and served in the navy until discharged on January 20, 1946. He served as a Radar man 3/c on the Destroyer Escort USS Lee Fox DE 65/APD 45 In World War ll covering the Atlantic and Pacific theaters of operations. This book covers his wartime experiences.

This compelling tale of courage, heroism, and terror is told in the words of ninety-one sailors and officers interviewed by the author about their World War II service aboard fifty-six destroyer escorts. They reveal many never-before-told details of life at sea during wartime and, along with information found in secretly kept war diaries and previously unpublished personal photographs, add important dimensions to the official record. Unseasoned teenage recruits when they first went to sea, these sailors were led by inexperienced college boys more accustomed to yachts than warships. Their ships were untested vessels, designed by a man with no formal training in ship design, and which many viewed as a waste of money. Yet, as Cross points out, these men are credited with helping turn the tide of the war in the Atlantic as they singlehandedly sank some seventy U-boats and captured U-505, the only German submarine taken during the war and the first enemy vessel captured by Americans at sea since the War of 1812. In the Pacific, the destroyer escorts fought in every major battle, side-by-side with Allied battleships and destroyers. But this story is not just about battles. It is also about American genius, hard work, honor and growing up in the Great Depression. The author provides eyewitness details about the historic first step taken to end racial discrimination in the military as African-Americans stepped aboard the destroyer escort USS Mason as full-fledged sailors for the first time and earned a Navy commendation of heroism in the Battle of the Atlantic presented to the surviving crewmen fifty-one years later. Readers also learn about an ingenious invention when a sailor breaks his silence about a secret weapon tested aboard his destroyer escort that rendered a new German radio-controlled glide bomb useless.

For Christmas of 1988 my wife, Doris, and our children Ronn, Carolyn and Phyllis gave me a tape recorder in order that I might record my story of the war. So during the winter of 1989, I taped the story of my experiences of the time leading up to World War II and the time I spent as a Destroyer Escort Sonar Man in the Navy. My story ended up being 22 ninety-minute tapes. Over the course of 4 months during the winter of 2011-12, Erma Akey, my sister-in-law, transcribed my story using these tapes. My daughter, Phyllis Akey Gregg and her husband, K.T. (Tom) Gregg, edited this story. Thanks go to Erma, Phyllis and Tom for the time they spent on my memoirs of WWII. Additional thanks goes to my granddaughter, Cynthia Kiesel, and her sister-in-law, Janet Kiesel, for designing and publishing this book.

During World War II, James Patric served for two years aboard the destroyer USS George E. Badger. The ship, launched in 1918, was one of several hundred "mothballed" World War I four-pipers. As American involvement in World War II drew closer, most of them were re-activated for service in the US Navy; four-pipers such as the Badger were involved in reporting and tracking ships and aircraft approaching American shores, seizing Axis ships in American ports, occupying Greenland, and relieving the British from the defense of Iceland. The Badger was involved in every stage of the conflict, from pre-war Neutrality Patrol, escorting convoys, anti-submarine warfare (a pioneer hunter/killer), carrying Underwater Demolition Team 8, and pre-invasion (Frogmen) reconnaissance of South Pacific invasion beaches. This memoir weaves together the oral and written memories of James Patric, a Connecticut farmboy who was drafted in early 1943, with those of his shipmates on the Badger, supporting them with documents and historical records. The book records the ship's role in worldwide conflict and traces the author's evolution from raw peacetime civilian to veteran wartime sailor. Appendices list the muster rolls of the crew and commissioned officers.

A US Navy captain offers a no-holds-barred account of his service on the USS Pollack in the Pacific during World War II. A coin flip likely saved the life of Kenneth C. Ruiz. It was August 1942, and he was fresh out of the US Naval Academy. He and a classmate flipped a coin to see who would stand watch on the bridge of their heavy cruiser, the USS Vincennes, off Savo Island as the Marines were landing on Guadalcanal. Ruiz was on the bridge when the ship took a direct hit and sank. He ended up in the Pacific without a life jacket, but his classmate and the entire radio room crew perished in the attack. “The luck of the draw” is a recurring theme in this powerful memoir. Following the demise of the Vincennes, Ruiz volunteered to serve on submarines for the balance of the war and had numerous harrowing experiences. He spent most of his time on the USS Pollack, which was sub-standard in terms of technology, but was still deadly and made a significant impact on Japanese shipping in the far reaches of the Pacific. A worthy addition to the litany of WWII books on submariners, The Luck of the Draw is filled with heartbreaking stories of how the smallest decisions made the difference between life and death for soldiers and sailors in the war.

More than 800 sailors served aboard the Sterett during her hazardous and demanding duties in World War II. This is the story of those men and their beloved ship, recorded by a junior officer who served on the famous destroyer from her commissioning in 1939 to April 1943.