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MWSA Review
Thomas F. McCaffery, a career merchant mariner, weaves a tale of unlikely survival, individual courage, bureaucratic concerns, and inspired leadership of the crew of the USS Lakatoi off the coast of New Caledonia in 1942. The Midshipmen's Tale is a quick read, owing to the strength of the main character, LCDR James I. MacPherson, and the nuance with which McCaffery writes about command at sea. The largely unheralded role the merchant marine played in Allied victory is brought to life in McCaffery's first fictional work. Like his previous non-fiction book, Braving the Wartime Seas, the detailed research and historical accuracy present in The Midshipmen's Tale are a tribute to McCaffery's skill as a researcher and ability to find overlooked stories, making them accessible for a wider audience.
Review by Timothy Heck (April 2021)
Author's Synopsis
In 1842 Midshipman Phillip Spencer, USN, son of the Secretary of War, was hung for inciting the crew of USS Somers to mutiny. Since then U.S. Navy midshipmen have not been crew members of any commissioned U.S. Navy ship at any time, but especially in combat. That is, until 1941, when the needs of the oncoming war required a small change in the U.S. Navy's century-old policy. That summer, fifty students at what would become the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, known as Cadet/Midshipmen, were assigned as midshipmen to U.S. Navy amphibious transports. The assignment, as with all midshipmen in history, was originally for training. However, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor changed everything. On August 7, 1942 six of these midshipmen were on duty at Guadalcanal for America’s first amphibious offensive against the Japanese. Two of them, Edward S. Davis and Robert H. Dudley, were ordered to abandon their ship, USS George F. Elliott, after a Japanese bomber crashed into it, starting an uncontrollable fire. In the aftermath of the Navy’s defeat at Savo Island that night, the transports, and their midshipmen, were forced to retreat to safer waters, leaving the Marines with just half of their supplies and equipment to carry on the fight. But, the Marines couldn’t just be abandoned to their fate. Unable to return to Guadalcanal in force, covert plans were hurriedly improvised by the Navy to resupply them. One of these plans was to slip a former inter-island freighter, M/V Lakatoi, past the watchful Japanese into Guadalcanal. Commissioned USS Lakatoi, the ship and its volunteer Navy crew, including Midshipmen Edward Davis and Robert Dudley, set sail on a desperate, impossible mission from which none of its crew believed they would return. In summing up their remarkable story, Vice Admiral William F. Halsey wrote, “The Commanding Officer and members of the crew of the U. S. S. LAKATOI displayed fortitude and heroism in keeping with the best traditions of the service.”
ISBN/ASIN: 978-1-7363326-2-7,978-1-7363326-0-3,978-1-7363326-1-0
Book Format(s): Soft cover, Kindle
Review Genre: Fiction—Historical Fiction
Number of Pages: 254