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MIRACLE IN THE SOUTH PACIFIC

A gripping account of a natural disaster within a man-made one: war.

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A U.S. sailor during World War II recollects his harrowing experiences aboard a Navy destroyer besieged by a typhoon in this debut memoir. 

Robert J. Loyd was born in 1927 in Annapolis, a town in rural Missouri with fewer than 500 inhabitants. His childhood wasn’t always easy—his father died suddenly from appendicitis when the boy was just 5—but he eventually felt relatively happy. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, though, the national mood darkened and he became eager to do his part. He decided to enlist in the Navy when he was only 16, falsifying forms to conceal the fact that he fell two years short of the age requirement. When his mother received the news, her grief was inconsolable, but she supported her son, and he decamped for Idaho for basic training. Upon graduation, he was assigned to the USS Dewey, a destroyer that was part of a naval fleet that handled bombing, patrolling, and escort missions in the South Pacific. In 1943, the Dewey made its way to Pearl Harbor, and in December 1944, the ship faced an adversary more formidable than any weapon the Axis Powers possessed: a typhoon. Low on fuel, Capt. Raymond Calhoun made a bold decision to take the ship directly into the storm, later nicknamed Cobra, which boasted winds as high as 185 miles per hour. The vessel, which began to take on a dangerous amount of water, made it into the storm’s eye, providing a brief moment of refuge. But it was nearly destroyed exiting the other side. This vivid memoir—co-authored by Loyd’s daughter-in-law, Donna—ably captures the terrifying force of the tempest: “The deafening roar of the wind increased, paralleling the intense, unrelenting pitching and crashing of the ship. Powerless, we clung to our leather straps and belts in the dark recesses of our iron ship in a vast ocean in the middle of a raging typhoon.” The authors interpret the sailor’s unlikely survival as a miracle (“Every man who had survived the typhoon on the Dewey felt certain he had come face-to-face with a higher power in the South Pacific those December days in 1944”). Given this riveting account, the reader may be inclined to agree. Compact and exciting, this volume is an excellent peek into World War II naval life. 

A gripping account of a natural disaster within a man-made one: war. 

Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2017

ISBN: 978-1-5320-1231-0

Page Count: 102

Publisher: iUniverse

Review Posted Online: June 5, 2017

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THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS

FROM MEAN STREETS TO WALL STREET

Well-told and admonitory.

Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.

Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.

Well-told and admonitory.

Pub Date: June 1, 2006

ISBN: 0-06-074486-3

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006

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BLACK BOY

A RECORD OF CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH

This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.

It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.

Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.

Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1945

ISBN: 0061130249

Page Count: 450

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1945

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