Gallant Lady: A Biography of the USS
Archerfish
I just put "Gallant Lady" on the
book shelf after finishing it. I was so impressed with
this book the way it was written. It told a story that
only crew members can truly relate to but it also tells a
story that John Q. Public will certainly be thrilled to
read. My thoughts are prompted by no one and my feelings
could not be hidden as I read the final chapter where it
describes that no one will ever touch or see this Gallant
Lady again. Shipmates and all others....I have never
apologized for tears when I was "moved" as much as this
book moved me. I am 66 years old and served on her when I
was in my twenties but after reading this book, it was
like yesterday. One gigantic BRAVO ZULU to Pigpen Henry
and Don Keith. Congratulations on a wonderful book. Zero
Bubble. Mac McCollum Woodland, CA USA
The above review was sent to
Archerfish webmaster Corny Cornelison who had this
reponse: Mac, I had the same reaction... chills, lump
in my throat and some tears. Gallant Lady brought back
many, many fond memories of a Great Submarine and
Wonderful Shipmates. You are so right.... after so many
years, it still "seems like yesterday". Pig and Don have
done a masterful job of telling "our" story. - Jerry
Cornelison
I just finished reading the book about my
father in laws old “boat”. I was impressed with the
comradeship and closeness of the crew of the USS
Archerfish. It also put a smile on my face to think about
how my father in law (Archie Moore) acted when he was my age and
in the Navy. I would strongly recommend this book not only
for Sailors, but also all Military personnel who want to learn
about teamwork and mission accomplishment. - Semper
Fidelis, Michael Shetler, GySgt
USMC
There are "submarine
books" and then there are "SUBMARINE BOOKS". Some books are
written by civilians and are total fiction, fantasy and hand you
horse manure in front-end loader scoops. Some are written by
very knowlegable officers who drank coffee poured from silver
plated pots and attended Annapolis class reunions....There are
terms used like "my bridge partner" that deal with cards rather
where ships are conned...and "cocktail party" rather than "large
scale drunken romp"....The words Shore Patrol rarely turn up in
'officer submarine books' and when they do, usually refer to
some unpleasant task the fellow had to perform to obtain the
return of 3/4th's of his crew. Then there are "raghat
perspective' books written by salty sonuvabitches who have
danced with the Goddess of the Main Induction, played leapfrog
with the Devil, sewed more wild oats than a John Deere seed
spreader and wrung more saltwater out of their socks than most
folks have ever seen. GALLANT LADY is such a book...Written by
two gentlemen who got it right...every bloody word of it. They
are Misters. Ken Henry and Don Keith....Actually I wouldn't know
Don Keith if he fell out of a tree and landed on me...all I know
is that if he co-authored that book he has to be one helluva a
writer and if he's a friend of Ken Henry, he's a man worth
knowing. But I do know Ken "Pig" Henry...know him well enough to
know that this absolutely wonderful book about the USS
ARCHERFISH is his idea of a love story. Like most of us he's one
of those lucky bastards who has a lovely bride and a 311 foot
contraption with bow planes and limber holes tucked in his
heart. After fifty pages, you know this is no damn Tom Clancy
rendition...this is a guy you could have rubbed shoulders with
while swilling suds in some raunchy, godfersaken ginmill in East
Bonga-Wanga while waiting for some busted engine part to be
flown in from stateside.....our some guy you could have seen
jump out the back window of some cathouse while the local
constabulary were making their way through the front door of the
establishment. This is a book written by a boatsailor for
boatsailors. It has nothing to do with radiation, thermodynamics
or anything going below six to eight hundred feet.....It does't
do cosmetic surgery on anything...It deals with leaks, fires,
spare parts theft, smelly raghats, gettin' loaded, riding in
paddy wagons and dating Ava Gardner. It has ice bergs, wild
liberty ports, tough CPO's (incidently...with tattoos)and cooks
in dirty aprons......It tells the story of a boat with a 99%
single crew that did a special mission that lasted two years and
took them around the globe and registering more naughtical miles
than any other smokeboat before or since. But most of all it
deals with a group of jolly bastards living inside an old worn
out pressure hull and loving every minutes....It's about men in
faded dungarees and frayed raghats playing modern day
buccaneers....men who knew that they were their own
salvation...men who rewrote regulations to meet their particular
need of the moment....men who gave everything but the mission,
the finger. I have a friend, a raghat submarine warrior...who
wrote a classic book about boatsailoring when Hirohito's boys
wanted to pack him off to the firey furnace, Ron "Warshot" Smith
(author of TORPEDOMAN). I know that Warshot would approve of
this book. Why?? Because, I know Warshot....GALLANT LADY doesn't
sugarcoat a damn thing.....Serves it to you barnacles, rust
stains and all.....and kickstarts your memory cells every other
page. Children can you say..."G-O-O-D B-O-O-K ?" Can you say
"Goddam FANTASTIC READ?" Take out your ballpoint...write GALLANT
LADY...A Biography of the USS ARCHERFISH...hardback....the true
story of one of histoy's most fabled submarines...by KEN HENRY
and Don Keith....ISBN 0-765-30568-2..........Horsefly, I give
the damn thing six stars on a five star scale......but then I'm
predjudiced I know the author....but I could be sleepng with him
and not buy five damn books...which I have done, just to keep
the sonuvabitches I know from stealing mine.....and I have read
mine twice. The only thing I could think of that could possibly
improve that book would be a giant buck nekkit photo of Meg Ryan
as a centerfold....but you can't have everything. As an E-3 they
make that very clear...DEX - Robert "Dex" Armstrong (Ray
"Olgoat" Stone BBS post)
More
reviews... - How to
get a signed copy
Under Pressure - Order
From Amazon.Com
One of the best submarine books I've
read in a long time. Author AJ Hill does an excellent job
of taking the reader aboard the ill-fated S-5 by painting
a vivid picture of the original "terrible hours." Skipper
"Savvy" Cooke is a most interesting central character - a
brilliant submarine officer who endured more than his
share of challenges. Once the S-5 is "on the bottom," Hill
captures the essence of a submarine crew under extreme
duress, the tension is so real you can smell the diesel
oil. Related "stories within the story" such as the
history of the Edison submarine battery and high-command
politics are worth the price of admission alone. - Don
Gentry
The Terrible Hours
- Order
From Amazon.Com
I
too have read the book Terrible Hours and although I was not a
submariner during the war (I was a Seabee), I did meet several
submariners while stationed in Hawaii. They were billeted at the Royal
Hawaiian Hotel.
The
ones I met loved their duty. A more dedicated group i never met. I was
eighteen years old when the Squalis went down and I followed the story
in the newspapers every day. The telling of this story in the book
brought back those Terrible Hours vividly.
I
highly recommend it's reading
Warren
Grymes
Read
this book! "The Terrible Hours" by Peter Maas.
Charles
Bowers Momsen, Learn how the "Momsen Lung" was just the
tip of the iceberg
in one man's dedication to the Submarine Service, and to the Navy collectively.
How the sinking of the S-51, and two years later the S-4 off
Provincetown
almost drove this man to resign his commission.
Put
this together
with "Blind Mans Bluff" and one reaches the conclusion that
the "Silent
Service" is; and for more reasons then one! I for one, a mere amateur,
one who loved the duty, but who also recognized the strain that the
"submariners life" put on the family, chose the
latter.
As
have many, I have seen the conning tower of Squalis at Portsmouth Ship
Yard (but just as I never heard mention of sinking, or drowning while
stationed on a submarine), I never asked in-depth questions about the
Squalis sinking. The rescue was broached but never the mention of how
many lives lost. What hawser could connect Squalis, Albacore and
Nautilus? The "Submarine Sailor's Sailor," the "Hard
Hat Diver's Diver," the "Blue Jacket's Friend": Charles
Bowers Momsen, known better as "Swede" Momsen.
Christopher
J. Pauli
former EM3(SS) Auxiliaryman
Here's Amazon.com's
review:
May
23, 1939. Television was being advertised for the first time to
American consumers. Europe was on the brink of war as Hitler and
Mussolini signed an alliance in Berlin. These were the days before
sonar and before the discovery of nuclear power revolutionized
submarine design. Dependent on battery power, submarines were actually
surface ships that "occasionally dipped beneath the waves."
If a sub went down, "every man on board was doomed. It was
accepted that there would be no deliverance."
Swede
Momsen was, according to master storyteller Peter Maas, the
"greatest submariner the Navy ever had," and he was
determined to beat those odds. Momsen spent his career trying to save
the lives of trapped submariners, despite an indifferent Navy
bureaucracy that thwarted and belittled his efforts at every turn.
Every way of saving a sailor entombed in a sub--"smoke bombs,
telephone marker buoys, new deep-sea diving techniques, escape
hatches, artificial lungs, a great pear-shaped rescue chamber--was
either a direct result of Momsen's inventive derring-do, or of value
only because of it." Yet on the day the Squalus sank, none of
Momsen's inventions had been used in an actual submarine disaster.
In
The Terrible Hours, Maas reconstructs the harrowing 39 hours between
the disappearance of the submarine Squalus during a test dive off the
New England coast and the eventual rescue of 33 crew members trapped
in the vessel 250 feet beneath the sea. It's also the story of
Momsen's triumph. Under the worst possible circumstances, Momsen led a
successful mission and helped change the future of undersea
lifesaving. Not only has Maas written a carefully researched and
suspenseful tribute to a true hero, in the process he has salvaged a
long-forgotten, riveting piece of American history.
Spy Sub - Order From
Amazon.Com
We haven't
reviewed this book yet but here's a review from one of our
own:
Hi,
I just got linked to your site from a shipmate. I served on the USS
Barb, SSN 596, from 85 through decommissioning (RO). I performed the
final reactor shutdown on her and watched the last fuel cell go away.
I want to recommend a book to you I just finished called Spy Sub by
Roger Dunham, Naval Institute Press.
This
book is the most accurate account of life on board a sub from a nuke's
point of view that I have ever found. Dunham was a RO on board a
converted boomer spook boat in the late 60's. Fascinating true story,
reads like a novel.
John
Bartholomew a.k.a. Bart
ETC(SS)
USS Barb SSN-596
Previous
Featured Book
Thunder Below -
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Retired Admiral
Eugene (Gene) Fluckey's personal recollections of his experiences in
the submarine service with the spotlight on USS Barb. This book reads like a patrol report that just happens to include all the details
that were omitted from the official one (he makes several references
to an "illegal" log of the patrols that adds meat to the
enlisted man's viewpoint)
Fluckey paints a
realistic and vivid picture with each stroke of the pen - you smell
the sea salt as you read. Perhaps the best characteristic of the book
is how Fluckey reflects the "innocence" of the era while
serving up a clear but restrained depiction of the horrors of
battle How may submariners survived a depth charge attack only
to be rewarded by a healthy ration of (approved) beer? Now
THERE'S a skipper I could have served under! D.G.
A very articulate
story of the adventures of BARB under the command of Fluckey. The
admiral's recollections are thought provoking and exciting. The
admiral was a bit conservative as to his heroics and adventures,
however, having read the actual patrol reports of BARB years ago. It
is also considerate that profits from the book are us to assist former
shipmates and their families. The book is a must for every
submariner's book shelf.
Bob Harmuth
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Blind Man's Bluff :
The
Untold Story of American Submarine
Espionage
