Customer Reviews

Subchaser in the South Pacific: A Saga of the USS SC-761 During World War II

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I am delighted to see that ibooks has released Capt. Henry Doscher's Subchaser in the South Pacific in paperback format - a dozen years after it was published in hardcover. Otherwise available only as an expensive collector's item, this edition will allow a new generation of readers to benefit from Doscher's absorbing descriptions of his wartime experiences in the Pacific Theater.

About twice the size of the more famous PT boats, popularized in movies and television shows, the all-wood, lightly-armed subchasers patrolled the Solomon Islands waters searching for enemy submarines, which they attacked with depth charges. Twenty-seven crew and three officers manned the subchasers, sleeping and eating aboard.

Doscher's subchaser SC-761 participated in two dramatic rescue missions in which coastwatchers and their support staff were spirited from behind enemy lines. Escorting convoys to Guadalcanal, New Georgia, Rendova and Vella Lavella Islands was another duty.

Part of the so-called Splinter Fleet, subchasers under the command of men like Capt. Doscher went in harm's way to defeat a determined enemy. Subchaser in the South Pacific is a fitting memorial to their bravery and sacrifice.

We really enjoyed this book. My dad was on a subchaser during WWII but he never talked about it a whole lot. I wish I would have read this book before he died. As it turns out, one of the men mentioned in the book is the father of a friend. I never knew his father had been on a similar vessel. It was well written and gives you a good idea of what life must have been like on a subchaser during this period of our history.