An ex-Navy swab ship's over into the Coast Guard shortly following WWII, thinking he will get a free ride in this shallow-water navy.
This is based upon what happened to the author when he joined the Old Coast Guard in 1947. He learned immediately that almost everything he had learned in the wartime Navy was of no use to him in this small outfit, which behaved more like a bunch of hooligans than a branch of the Armed Forces. During one two-year hitch he served as a radio operator aboard five cutters on both coasts and in Alaska
This is a detailed and accurate account of what life was like aboard an ice-breaker, a buoy tender, an air-sea rescue cutter, and three weather ship assigned to Station Fox midway between San Francisco and Honolulu.
Excerpt
The U. S. Coast Guard in 1947 had just gone through WW2 as part of the U. S. Navy. It was in great need of new blood, especially seasoned sailors from the Big Ship Navy. So it seemed like a good idea to offer Ruptured Ducks with sea duty backgrounds a 2-year hitch. This is the story of three such swabs who shipped over into the CG, thinking they were joining a "shallow-water version of their Old Navy. It was a lesson they would never forget, because what they actually got was the Hooligan Navy, the saltiest sea duty in the world.
Dublin 1941. A brutal murder. Mistaken identity. And barman Eamon Foley is running for his life.
Nine months later Foley is in a crowded pub, and his brother-in-law is shot dead.
Shanghai Escapist grabs the faint-of-heart right from the get-go and serves up an ultimatum: What would you do if caught in the same circumstances? From the opening scene, the reader is tossed into the maze of daily intrigue as it existed in 1960s-70
Shanghai Escapist grabs the faint-of-heart right from the get-go and serves up an ultimatum: What would you do if caught in the same circumstances? From the opening scene, the reader is tossed into the maze of daily intrigue as it existed in 1960s-70
