Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A real page-turner!, July 24, 2005
. When you think of an east coast university professor who specializes in the humanities--Shakespearean literature, in this case--you probably won't be visualizing someone who started adulthood by engaging in vicious aerial gunnery duels with Japanese fighters and otherwise living the stressful, profane, hazardous life of an enlisted sailor on three World War II aircraft carriers, one of which was sunk while he was aboard. Such is the case, though, with retired Yale professor Alvin B. Kernan, author of "Crossing the Line," one of the most interesting and often gripping sagas of navy life that I've read.
. The book came as a surprise to me, on two counts. One, I knew that Kernan had been an aviation ordnanceman on the USS Enterprise during the Battle of Midway, and later an aerial gunner. But I had very little notion of the depth of his wartime experiences, not only as an aircrewman but also in escaping the sinking of the USS Hornet in the Guadalcanal battles and in a harrowing deployment aboard the escort carrier USS Suwanee (CVE-27). Suffice to say in this short review that Kernan earned a Navy Cross, a DFC, and five air medals from inside the turret of a TBF Avenger!
. And two, I had previously read Kernan's fictitious account of the Battle of Midway, "Love and Glory," which I thought was interesting but flawed in a number of regards (see my review on Amazon). For that reason, I was a little dubious about reading "Crossing the Line." Would this be another "interesting but flawed" piece of work that would cause me to keep my red pen handy while I read it? No. Crossing the Line is simply outstanding. Anyone with an interest in WWII naval air action will also want to read this book. I highly recommend it. Yes, there are a couple of minor nits that a very knowledgeable historian might want to pick, but they are so insignificant as to be unworthy of mentioning here. "Crossing the Line" will not disappoint you. In fact, you'll probably find it hard to put down.
. (Reviewed by R. W. Russell, Battle of Midway Roundtable, www.midway42.org)
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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Brilliant, moving, fantastic read, July 16, 1999
By A Customer
I've read a thousand books about WWII, many of them about the Pacific theater. But this book is just amazing -- the story of the great events (Pearl Harbor, the Battle of Midway)told from the point of view of an enlisted man who lived the life of an ordinary sailor while the admirals were plotting grand strategy. It's impossible to get across how poignant and exciting this book is: you feel as though you were 18 years old, growing up in the waning years of the Depression, and then wandered into the Navy just before all hell broke loose at Pearl and America was plunged into the greatest chapter in her history. Kernan captures the gritty details of daily life in the Navy -- the slow, mind-numbing tedium of chipping rust off the anchor chain of a aircraft carrier, each link 3 feet long, the gunner's mate who stays drunk on the alcohol used to clean bombsites, the insanity of the greasy, heaving deck of a carrier as planes return from their missions, with damaged planes instantly and uncermoniously dumped over the side to make room for the next to land. The account of Midway -- the dive bomber pilots nursing their planes home, low on gas, then landing with difficulty, then getting out of the cockpit and jumping up and down on the deck and shouting and laughing, wild with excitement because they had just singlehandedly destroyed the Japanese navy in an action lasting only a few minutes -- is something that will stay in my mind forever. Kernan is a brilliant writer. There's nothing "literary" about Crossing the Line: anyone can read it and will just be swept along by the story, the way I was.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A wonderful memoir of the life of a young Navy sailor during, March 5, 2001
Alvin Kernan's "Crossing the Line: A Bluejacket's World War II Odyssey" is a wonderful memoir of the life of a young Navy sailor during World War II. Written in a humorous and sophisticated writing style, it provides the reader with a strong sense of what it was like for a young boy to leave his home and spend four years growing up in the midst of a war at sea. I am sure that Kernan's experience parallels that of my grandfather, who left rural Arkansas for the first time ever as a young 17-year old to take part in large Pacific invasions. If only young people today could understand the sacrifice and hard work that these young men faced. Kernan vividly makes his youth come to life with "Crossing the Line." A must read for avid readers of Navy and World War II subjects.
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by Alvin B. Kernan
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