Bacalao

Best-selling author Homer Hickam writes: "Bacalao is an impressive and exciting novel of undersea warfare that follows an American attack sub from the moment its keel is laid and on into the deep blue Pacific Ocean to do battle against the Japanese Empire. Her commander and crew are individuals we come to respect, even worry over. The Bacalao also becomes one of those individuals, a steel spirit with a great heart and persevering soul. J.T. McDaniel, an authority on World War II submarines, is a terrific writer who has created a classic of wartime adventure. Heartily recommended." When Lieutenant Lawrence Miller first sees U.S.S. Bacalao, the new Gato class fleet submarine is little more than a pile of curved steel plates stacked up alongside at the Electric Boat Company in Groton, CT. Over the next few month Miller watches the boat take shape and the crew gather from throughout the fleet. By late 1941, Bacalao is in commission and assigned to the Pacific Fleet in Hawaii. Then, on a December Sunday morning, everything changes as the Japanese sneak attack plunges the United States into World War II. The new submarine and her untried crew are immediately thrown into action against the Japanese. And Miller is there through it all, from the disastrous first patrol, when the boat is nearly lost and a pair of surprising heroes emerge, to the deployment to Australia, where a chance encounter ashore will change his life forever. Then, after a year in command of an antiquated S-boat in the frozen hell of the Aleutians, Miller returns to Bacalao as her final wartime commander.