We Were Pirates: A Torpedoman's Pacific War

Ok. Odd admission here. While at work, I sometimes listen to a podcast called The Pritzker Military Library. Basically, they've got hundreds of interviews of veterans and authors, chronicling their stories or currents works. So you can get an old man talking about how he won the Navy Cross choking out an Nazi, or an author detailing the first battle of the Marne in World War One. Often you get monotone droning that puts you to sleep. Sometimes though, you will hear a grown man's heart break as he retells one of these difficult moments from his long life. It can be quite moving and always interesting.

This book "We Were Pirates" by Robert Shultz/James Shell covers a young sailors adventures in the South Pacific including combat and shore leave. If you catch my drift.

Robert Hunt managed to survive twelve consecutive war patrols on the submarine USS Tambor. During the course of the war, Hunt was everywhere that mattered in the Pacific. He stood on the bow of the Tambor as it cruised into Pearl Harbor just days after the devastation of the Japanese air raid, peered through binoculars as his boat shadowed Japanese cruisers at the Battle of Midway, ferried guns and supplies to American guerilla fighters in the Philippines, fired torpedoes that sank vital Japanese shipping, and survived a near-fatal, seventeen-hour depth-charge attack. For exceptional skill and proficiency at his battle station Hunt received a commendation from Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz. This WWII torpedoman's account of the war offers the rare perspective of an enlisted seaman that is not available in the more common officer accounts. To capture and recount the progress of the Pacific War through Hunt's eyes coauthors Robert Schultz and James Shell examined the young submariner's war diary, as well as crew letters, photographs, and captains' reports, and they also conducted hours of interviews. Their vivid descriptions of the ways in which sailors dealt with the stress of war while at sea or on liberty show a side of the war that is rarely reported.

USS Tambor's Wikipedia link here.


(Below) Robert Hunt during the war years.