Customer Reviews

Stealth Boat: Fighting the Cold War in a Fast Attack Submarine

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Stealth Boat is Gannon McHale's crowning achievement as a Submariner. His writing has a rhythm that carried me through the night. I expected to read a few pages before bed, and surfaced on the last page at just before four, thinking it must be after midnight. His characters are bold and salty, and he captures these men of the sea with the joy and humor that pulls them through the long months of submerged operations, and long nights of liberty in strange ports.

It has been said that submarine patrols are extended periods of extreme boredom punctuated by moments of stark terror. Stealth Boat beautifully shreds the illusion of boredom - there is never time for a Submariner to become bored. He has qualifications to complete, and then new guys to mold into shipmates and Submariners.

Deep water sailors are a strange breed. And the smaller the ship, the tighter is the crew. There is something about weathering a storm or a seawater leak that draws a crew together. An instant of carelessness, or a second of hesitation when the water finds its way in, can send you to the bottom. You realize suddenly that everyone must rely on each shipmate for their very lives, and your own qualification takes on new meaning.

If you know a Submariner, you need to read this book. If you have wondered about their confident good humor and systematic approach to problems, their zany escapades, this is the book for you. If you've been astonished by their head-snapping instant reaction to an emergency, Gannon McHale's Stealth Boat explains it.

Stealth Boat is a tale of shipmates, and a journey to manhood. The Brotherhood of Submariners has a new storyteller. If you rode the boats and need another look at your youth, read this book. But don't think you are going to read a few pages and put it down.

This is a book that is full of NTINSers and every one is true. (Grin) This definitely is the most fun book I have read about the fast attacks of the mid sixties, but also in many ways this portrays how it was more completely than the rest. Technically I never noticed an error. There might be one in there, but I was having too much fun reading it to note any.
From boot camp, to sub school to qualifying under a crusty old COB and a crew that once they trusted you put as much effort into helping you as you did into learning the boat; this is how I remember my days on the Snook and Scorpion. Standing helms/planes/lookout watches on a ship that reacted even quicker and was faster than the Sturgeon, but much noiser, closing the hatch to the bridge because the waves were going over the top of the sail by 30 feet, then having to hold your breath as you went under for a few seconds in the middle of a hurricane; and then the next time coming up and seeing a million stars while surround by a thousand miles of so beautiful but oh so lonely ocean is what made those times so thrilling to a young man in his early 20s. Gannon's tales of playing tag with the Soviets, taking pictures, giving the spooks a hard time and knowing what was going on, are just as it was with the Scorpion and the Snook. I too remember when the Snook got kicked out of a port because our behaviour didn't quite match the social norms. LOL
Snake ranches, making the last boat back to the ship, carrying aboard shipmates who couldn't stand up as we were getting underway. This is what it was all about and knowing that in port or underway, you didn't have to look for your buddy; he was always there for you. This is a book I'll read over and over to see old friends like Doc Reed and Dennis Blado mentioned, to read more about shipmates like Admiral DeMars.
It brought back a slug of memories, I laughed on all most every page, and cried when they talked about trying to find my ship.
I have for some time been trying to explain to my dearest friend how it was. Now I can just say, go read the book.
Thanks Gannon, you tell a wonderful tale of when we were young and went through something that no one who was not there will every really understand. Oh, and I would call your aphorism on page 34 an alliteration, but enjoyed it and we had a couple of ecdysiasts on the Scorpion and the Snook also.
Viejo

I really enjoyed this book. As a fast-attack sailor on 2 East coast boats in the late 60's early 70's, I relived my early submarine years thru this book. Highly recommended. CWO-4 (7281) Leonard D. O'Dell, USN Retired

Stealth Boat indeed! This boat and indeed the entire Sturgeon class of twenty-nine boats from the Sturgeon to the Silversides were the hot rods of the ocean and were the test beds for the later Los Angeles Class boats. The stories in this book are the stuff that is bantered about at SubVet meetings, boat reunions, and conventions. They are what I remember from my time aboard in the 60's when I road a boomer for five years. This is a handbook for Sturgeon sailors and an educations for that didn't ride these boats or punch holes in the ocean. It was a pleasure to see an important book written from the enlisted side of the spectrum and it was a fun read and entirely too short as most books that are memorable are. Thanks Gannon for a great read.

Mr. McHale's laughter filled, suspense thriller is a great read, I highly recommend to all, readers of non-fiction and fiction. I was born in 1964 and got a real kick out of Mr. McHale's setting up of the wider culture, what was going on outside of the sub, very evocative. However the real blast is the one-two punch of feeling like I got to know these guys, their funny quirks, pranks, and their dedication to doing a difficult job, with the most complex machine of their time, at the highest levels of achievement.

For too many years, the activities of the American submarine fleet during the Cold War have been classified, and only recently have their exploits begun to be publicized.

Author Gannon McHale was one of those submariners. An enlisted man on board the USS Sturgeon, his book "Stealth Boat" is his memoir of his time in the Navy. Writing on the camaraderie of his fellow sailors as well as the missions they performed, McHale does an excellent job combining the human face - and humor - of his crewmen with the highly technical and extremely dangerous missions chasing Soviet nuclear boats in late 1960's.

McHale is a good writer with a fine eye for details. "Stealth boat" is far more than a dry re-cap of those forty year-old missions; it helps the reader get to know those young sailors who performed those missions with a professionalism and spirit that helped hound the Soviet Navy back to the relative safety of its ports. Well done !

This book is a great chronicle during a time that has very few honest moments. This book is for people who love good storytelling and want to know what the actual life of a seaman would have been like during the late 1960's. This book lets you know not only what was happening during the authors life but keeps you up to date on everything in america that was influencing the actions of society and the government.

While reading this book it felt as though I had sat down with the author and a some other members of the crew and asked...."What was it really like?". I feel that Gannon McHale has done a wonderful job of being so honest in his storytelling that you can see why so many crew members trusted him with their lives and their stories.

Dear Amazon,

"Stealth Boat" is an easy read and is a page turner by an author who was a crew member of what was perhaps the finest submarine ever designed and built at the time. A truly Stealth Boat, there were none quieter, more capable, or more deadly than the Sturgeon class submarine was in 1967. The author gives us an account of what it was like living day to day as an enlisted man serving under two distinctly different captains and wardrooms during his time aboard the boat. His position as a Yeoman enabled him to interface with both wardroom and crew like few others aboard the ship could. He gives an honest account of what being on an extended deployment was like from day to day. The book, of course, covers little about high level submarine operations or submarine warfare. He just happens to be on the boat recounting an experience few folks will ever experience. The book was not meant to be an operations manual for conducting undersea warfare. Many submariners who read this book will probably see themselves as they read through what was probably a significant period in the author's life as well as in their own lives.

Gannon McHale did a great job of re-constructing the way things were in the late 60's, in New London, in Nuclear Subs. The book brought back so many memories that I kept thinking he had paraphrased my own experiences.
If you were there you should read it for the enjoyment of it. If you were not there you should read it to see how things really were.

McHale stays true to the silent service. He doesn't reveal much operationally. But, oh those stories of daily life on the boat! I smiled and laughed my way all through the book in just two sittings. Couldn't put it down.

He can't really believe, however, that all those tales and life experiences are unique to the submarine service of McHale's Navy. Heck, three-quarters of the guys he writes about had twin brothers serving on my first ship, an ocean minesweeper that sailed and limped all over the Atlantic, Med, and North Sea. Every story he told or embellished reminded me of some long ago CASREP, near-miss "surface skim" on night ops, or "recovery op" after liberty in a foreign port. But Billy tells the story far better than I ever could.

I think his next book should be about his life on and off Broadway. He'll need a different publisher, of course. Get to it, McHale!