A BIRD IN THE DEEP

A story of poor leadership in the U.S. Navy during World War II.

In this debut nonfiction work, Krouse draws connections between his grandfather’s experience on the USS Partridge and Herman Wouk’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Caine Mutiny, both stories of ineffective, potentially dangerous captains who created dysfunctional environments on their ships. Krouse doesn’t claim that The Caine Mutiny’s Captain Queeg is in any way based on Adnah Caldin, captain of the Partridge, but uses Wouk’s work as a lens to guide his interpretation of the story he pieces together with help from the surviving sailors. The Partridge began life as a World War I minesweeper, and in World War II, it patrolled the Caribbean until it was transferred to Europe, where its tugboat capabilities were put to work in building the offshore infrastructure that supported the D-Day invasion. Krouse’s grandfather and the other sailors found life on the ship more difficult once Caldin took command, and they often ran afoul of his arbitrary, harsh, or nonsensical orders. When Caldin’s erratic behavior culminated in his leaving the bridge during an emergency, another parallel to The Caine Mutiny, he was removed from command while the Partridge’s construction work led it into danger. Although Caldin was effectively the story’s villain, he was not its center, as Krouse learned from his interviews: “Talking nearly 65 years after events, not one crew member could recall Caldin’s name off the top of their head.” The book tells the stories of many of the Partridge’s sailors, presenting well-rounded portraits of ordinary people in a bad situation. Krouse does a good job of maintaining the tension while slowly revealing the Partridge’s fate, and he does so without veering into melodrama. Wouk’s Navy experience and numerous excerpts from The Caine Mutiny provide a valuable context and a narrative anchor to a story filled with detailed history and persuasive analysis of how one leader failed his men.

This well-written history draws connections to an iconic novel and illuminates the lives of World War II sailors.