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The Extraordinary True Story of Four Submariners in War and Love and Life
Crown
October 2010
On Sale: October 5, 2010
416 pages
ISBN: 0609610430
EAN: 9780609610435
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
On April 23, 1943, the seventy-man crew of the USS Grenadier
scrambled to save their submarine—and themselves—after a
Japanese aerial torpedo sent it crashing to the ocean floor.
Miraculously, the men were able to bring the sub back to the
surface, only to be captured by the Japanese. No Ordinary Joes tells the harrowing story of four of the
Grenadier’s crew: Bob Palmer of Medford, Oregon; Chuck
Vervalin of Dundee, New York; Tim McCoy of Dallas, Texas;
and Gordy Cox of Yakima, Washington. All were enlistees from
families that struggled through the Great Depression. The
lure of service and duty to country were not their primary
motivations—they were more compelled by the promise of a job
that provided “three hots and a cot” and a steady paycheck.
On the day they were captured, all four were still teenagers. Together, the men faced unimaginable brutality at the hands
of their captors in a prisoner of war camp. With no training
in how to respond in the face of relentless interrogations
and with less than a cup of rice per day for sustenance,
each man created his own strategy for survival. When the
liberation finally came, all four anticipated a triumphant
homecoming to waiting families, loved ones, and wives, but
instead were forced to find a new kind of strength as they
struggled to resume their lives in a world that had given
them up for dead, and with the aftershocks of an experience
that haunted and colored the rest of their days. Author Larry Colton brings the lives of these four
“ordinary” heroes into brilliant focus. Theirs is a story of
tragedy and courage, romance and war, loss and endurance,
failure and redemption. With a scope both panoramic and
disarmingly intimate, No Ordinary Joes is a powerful look at
the atrocities of war, the reality of its aftermath, and the
restorative power of love.
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