Customer Reviews

Pacific Odyssey: History of the Uss Steele During Wwii

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Unlike the above negative review, I have have some good words about PACIFIC ODYSSEY. The book vividly describes the many tasks placed upon USS Steele in the Pacific[ convoy duty, recon missions, anti-submarine patrols, bombardment,etc.].The reader follows the DE on it's constant missions with little R&R for the crew.The book is complemented with many excellent maps. As a bonus, the reader is also given a good description of the island hopping campaign.

The book could have benefited from a few photos of the USS Steele.

This book was a real disappointment. It is essentially the bare bones description of the movements of this destroyer escort during WWII in the Pacific. A typical example: "April 7 - 10 we escorted three APAs to Saipan where we went ashore for the first time." This is followed by exactly one sentence that provides an insight - or color - to either the convoy or the ship's arrival in Saipan, concludinbg with "April 12 - 15 we returned independently to Eniwetok." Unfortunately most of the book is like this. There is next to nothing about life on a DE, the ship's crew or officers, incidents or actions, and, saddest of all, virtually nothing about the author's own experiences. This book badly needed editorial help. It's also set in sans serif type (a book-publishing no no) but the chapters are short,(the book is 92 pgs.) the font fairly large, so the type is reasonably readable. There is also a loose page (34a & 34b) which appears to have been inserted after the initial printing.