I am super-excited about a new book I was just tapped to narrate by Tantor Audio. It’s called Thunder Below! by US Navy Rear Admiral Eugene B. Fluckey.

I’ve been privileged to find something of a niche in the audiobook world- military history. Over a quarter of my published books fall into that genre, starting with Valor in Vietnam, continuing through Black Hearts, The Guerrilla Factory and None Braver, I’ve really enjoyed reading and narrating these books, because they tell such incredible stories of the deeply human experience that is warfare- the heroism and the tragedy alike. I literally wept while reading Black Hearts at times, and had equally strong reactions to every one of the stories I’ve been asked to tell.

As a former soldier and a combat veteran myself, it’s both an honor and maybe even a bit of a duty to tell these stories, and to do them the justice they really deserve.

But when I got the email about this one- wow! To say I was stoked would be doing a disservice to the word. I have been fascinated with submarine warfare in WWII for many years. I blame my then girlfriend (now wife) Robin, who only a few weeks after I met her, figuratively dragged me to see “Das Boot” at the local cinema in 1995 (she had a bit of a thing for Jürgen Prochnow). It was the really long cut and had an actual intermission. I went, prepared to be bored out of my skull.

Boy, was I wrong. After seeing that film I began devouring everything I could about submarine warfare in that era. From the German U-Boats to the American Gato, Balao and Tench class subs, I was fascinated. I was lucky that Robin had a pretty sizable collection of books on the topic already.

Thunder Below! is the story of the USS Barb (SS-220), a Gato-class submarine in WWII. It was commanded by Eugene B. Fluckey and has one of the most  amazing service records of any submarine that served in World War II. Among the things Barb accomplished while Fluckey was in command:

• Sank a large number of Japanese cargo ships and support vessels.
• Launched torpedoes into a group of 30+ enemy vessels at anchor in water nine meters (about 30 feet) deep, getting 8 direct hits on ammunition transports and doing massive secondary damage, then ran at 150% engines (setting a speed record of 44 km/h) for a full hour through uncharted, rock-strewn and mined waters to escape. Unharmed.
• Was the first submarine to use rockets successfully against enemy targets.
• Pioneered whole new doctrines of submarine warfare.
• Conducted the only land operation on the Japanese home islands during WWII, planting charges and destroying a railroad train after landing a shore party. These were sailors, trained to operate a submarine, not Marines trained for land combat.

Eugene Fluckey was awarded the Medal of Honor for Barb‘s actions during her 11th combat patrol. 

I knew a bit about Barb and Fluckey before being tapped for this book, but after doing a bit more research, I can tell I’m going to really enjoy reading this book. It brings together a number of my interests, and Fluckey has some of the most compelling stories there are to tell about WWII, and every review I’ve read says he wrote it in a very engaging and accessible style.

I will be starting narration on it in early July and I imagine it will be out by August. Once I have a publication date, I’ll update this post.

 

 

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 27th, 2013 at 8:35 pm and is filed under Audiobook, Blog, General, Work. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.