The Splendid Five is a story about five wooden subchasers in the Pacific during WW2. It is based upon the experiences of the author.
In the summer of 1944, five 110-ft. U. S. Navy SC's were converted to LCC's at the Naval Supply Base on Ile Nou Island, New Caledonia, and turned over to "MacArthur's Navy." Their mission was to assist in the island invasions from New Guinea to the Philippines. Two of the five survived to end the war at Saipan/Tinian as air/sea rescue ships for the big B-29 air base on Tinian.
Excerpt
"It was about the absurdity of war, as seen from the unsteady deck of a wooden subchaser, about the absolute nothingness that occupied most of their days at sea, about a diabolical boatswain's mate who deliberately set out to drive the men beneath him nuts, about malnutrition and sailors becoming toothless at the age of twenty on a persistent diet of graham crackers and cling peaches, and about the creeping rot of insanity brought on by boredom and apathy and fear and hopelessness."
