DOC Darwin 1942: The Japanese attack on Australia (Campaign) by Bob Alford in History

Description

As a citizen sailor of the late 1960's I spent three eventful years aboard a US Navy destroyer; the USS Furse (DD-882) including intensive operations in Vietnam as well as in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans in over 150;000 Nautical miles at sea. Those three years stand out as the most intense and formative of my adult life. Among the events I witnessed were running aground; colliding with another ship; being hit by enemy fire; and a murder on board. But many everyday challenges and events loom equally large for what they taught me about myself and about human nature in our tightly packed and tight-knit shipboard community. Letters written home almost every day along with declassified logs from the ship provide a window into life aboard a Navy destroyer. Re-entry to civilian life at the height of the Vietnam war illuminates these turbulent times as well as what citizen soldiers/sailors faced in that era.