Customer Reviews

Black Company: The Story of Subchaser 1264 (Bluejacket Paperbacks)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Told as only one who experienced it could tell it. Black Company is the story of human courage, a pursuit for justice and dignity, set against the backdrop of World War II, and the story of a young man who would evenutally become America's first Black Three-Star Admiral.

Eric Purden wrote a detailed and entertaining history about his subchaser and his experience with its black sailors during the Second World War. This book contains a wealth of information that probably has not been published elsewhere. I was particularly interested in finding facts about the navy's Submarine Chaser Training Center (SCTC), which took over the City of Miami's municipal docks during the war, and this account did not disappoint. I highly recommend it to those researching black military history, subchasers, the SCTC, Center Cmdr. E.F. McDaniel, Florida history, or WWII naval history generally. I rated it with five stars, because of its detailed and valuable contents as well as its easy readability. My only criticism is the book's lack of an index.

A simple story about a small warship in WWII. A few officers and about a hundred men. Only one serious action against a possible German U-boat. Commissioned in the summer of 1944, de-commissioned in the spring of 1946. Nothing spectacular about SC 1264 (Sub Chaser), except that her crew was almost entirely african-american. She was one of two ships selected to serve as a floating laboratory to see if black Americans could serve in other roles than as mess mates. And it was (un)spectacularly so! It helped making progress towards an integrated US Navy in a time when it was common belief that blacks couldn't serve in other capacities and certainly not serve as petty officers for white sailors, not even thinking about black officers. SC 1264 did all that and more, being the ship where the first future black flag officer of the US Navy got his feet wet.

A nice, small and very readable book.

This is another great book for insight into the life and times of black sailors of the 40's. No one account of stories tell all but a collection of different encounters give you a great idea of their experiences.