Bloodstained Sea

"In November 1941 America was not yet officially at war. Nevertheless, under orders from President Roosevelt, sailors of the U.S. Coast Guard painted their gleaming white cutters battleship gray and steamed into action against the menacing U-boats of the Third Reich. Bloodstained Sea recounts how, over the next four years, these men - normally dedicated to saving lives and rescuing ships in distress - would be locked in one of the longest and bloodiest running sea battles in history." "Americans called it Torpedo Junction; to the Germans, it was Devil's Gorge. By any name, the North Atlantic of the early 1940s was one of the most dangerous fronts in a catastrophic war. Called upon in desperate times, seven of the Coast Guard's finest ships - the sleek, efficient, tough 327-foot Secretary Class cutters - plied these unforgiving waters to protect convoys of troops and much-needed supplies." "Hunting U-boats, rescuing survivors from frigid waters, they met every challenge and undertook any task necessary to ensure that the Atlantic remained open to Allied shipping. Here, for the first time ever, author and former Coast Guard officer Michael Walling relates the full saga of these vessels and their intrepid crews." "Through eyewitness accounts based on hundreds of interviews with crew members; personal diaries, notes, and letters; and each cutter's logbooks and patrol reports, Walling plunges you into the thick of battle, re-creating some of the most desperate encounters, heroic rescues, and harrowing missions of the Second World War." "Told largely in the voices of the men who lived it, this tale is peppered with anecdotes about life aboard ship during wartime. You'll meet the liberty-craving crew members who painted their entire ship in less than an hour; the ship's mascot who became canine-non-grata in Greenland; and the crew whose vessel was mistaken for the German battleship Bismarck and attacked by the Royal Navy." "Complete with dramatic photographs of the Coast Guard in action, Bloodstained Sea brings this epic drama to life."--Jacket.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.