Customer Reviews

The Splendid Five: A True Story About the Splinter Fleet in the Pacific During WWII

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

 

 

A splendid story about WWII! Wesley has a gift for dialog and character building. His book reads like a novel as he finds himself in a safe backwater trying to get into the war. His antics are reminiscent of Catch 22 as two old salts get him into all kinds of trouble which leads to their being assigned to Splendid Five, a pre-WWI wooden ship shorter in length than the wingspan of a B-29. It was a subchaser "built to chase submarines but which could not defend herself from one."

Splendid Five and her sister ships were assigned to the Army to support MacArther's island hopping campaign to the Philippines. It starts in a light-hearted way but rapidly becomes grim as they enter their first battle off Pelelui*. The author got his first kill but learned: "Death for us would never hold the terrors it once had for we had seen it up close and knew it for what it was: The inevitable calling in of one's number."

We...were delighted when they spotted a Kilroy Was Here sign on the beach where " . . . no American could have done that and no Jap would do it . . . " He never explained how it got there.

A splendid read indeed. Don't miss it!

*Editor's note:"Bloody Peleui" cost nearly 2000 American lives and eight thousand wounded.

To prepare for these landings at Pelelui, Halsey's TF38 started a softening up campaign. Four TBFs off the light carrier San Jacinto took off to strike the radio station at Chichi Jima in the Bonins. A young, unknown Lt (j.g.) got shot down but was picked up by the American submarine, Finback. The Lieutenant's name was George H. Bush.

It is clear that this unknown story of WWII wooden subchasers will in the near future be chosen for the big screen.