Carl Lavo – författare

Eugene Fluckey was one of the great naval heroes of World War II. His exploits as captain of the submarine USS Barb revolutionized undersea warfare and laid the groundwork for a nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine fleet. He retired as a rear admiral and was awarded numerous presidential, congressional, and military honors, including the Medal of Honor and four Navy Crosses. In the war against Japan, Fluckey fired the first ballistic missiles from a submarine, sank more tonnage than any other U.S. submarine skipper, including an aircraft carrier, a cruiser, a destroyer, and blew up a train after landing submariners-turned-saboteurs on mainland Japan in 1945. Here is the legendary submariner''s story, told with the exclusive access to Fluckey''s personal papers and based on interviews with him, his family, Barb shipmates, official Navy documents, and the recollections of his contemporaries.

This epic World War II saga follows the USS Squalus and Sculpin as they play out their dramatic destinies in the Pacific. The author, a seasoned journalist, re-creates their entire perilous journey. The Squalus sank during a test dive in 1939, but thirty-three trapped crewmen were saved thanks to the revolutionary use of the McCann diving bell. The Sculpin's role in that historic rescue is just the first of many incongruous twists of fate that brought the two subs together after the Squalus was salvaged and rechristened the Sailfish. Carl LaVO skillfully weaves together the tragic loss of the Sculpin to a Japanese destroyer with the frenetic wrath of its sister sub. Their intertwined fates come to an eerie climax as the Sailfish unleashes a ten-hour attack on the Japanese aircraft carrier Chuyo amid a raging typhoon, unwittingly killing twenty-two of the forty-three Americans captured from the sunken Sculpin. The saga comes to a close with a moving description of the surviving Sculpin crewmen as they face incredible hardship, torture, and disease as POWs in Japan. This book is certain to instill a renewed appreciation for the intrepid men and stealthy boats that were the soul of the Pacific campaign's silent service.