Pacific Glory: A Novel (P. T. Deutermann WWII Novels) Kindle Edition

An outstanding novel, I would highly recommend this book to any WW2 history buff or for that matter anyone interested in a great story of a naval battle. Mr. Deutermann did an excellent job in telling this story, it was very difficult to put this book down. I had some doubts about buying this book and I am glad that I purchased it. One of the best books I have read in several years.

This World War II novel includes Midway and the battle of Leyte Gulf. It is the story of three characters who were classmates at Annapolis. One was killed at Pearl Harbor on December 7 but his wife has become a Navy nurse at the hospital at Pearl Harbor. The other two are a pilot who is crude and rude but skilled as a Douglas SBD pilot and the other is a shy surface ship officer who is quietly in love with his friend's widow. It has descriptions of a number of battles, including the "Battle of Bull's Run," Leyte Gulf.

Author P.T. Deutermann has written a very readable novel about the Pacific War from the Battle of Midway to the American invasion of the Philippines.The story revolves around three main characters. Marsh Vincent initially served on one of the Allied cruisers sunk by the Japanese off Savo Island. After recovering from his injuries, he is ordered aboard the new destroyer, the USS Evans. During his rehabilitation at Pearl Harbor, Marsh meets Sally, a nurse at the base hospital. Soon, the embers of a romance begin to burn. Marsh ends up serving heroically against the Japanese battle fleet at Leyte Gulf, taking command after the captain is killed. He even managed to slide the Evans right next to a Japanese battlewagon and slug it out.Mick McCarty, classmate of Marsh's, is a carrier-based pilot aboard the USS Yorktown. A notorious drinker and carouser, McCarty is always getting into trouble. He is moved from one ship to another, finally ending up on the escort carrier Madison Bay. As like his friend Marsh, Mick ends up fighting the Japanese fleet at Leyte Gulf. Attacking with only machine guns and light bombs, Mick set his course against the advancing enemy.Glory Hawthorne, friend to both Mick and Marsh, is a stunningly beautiful navy nurse. Her husband Tommy was killed aboard the USS Arizona. Now, she is struggling to get on with her life. A one-night stand with Mick leaves her unwed, pregnant, and unsure of what to do.I've read World War II history for many years, along with many novels about World War II, and I really enjoyed "Pacific Glory". The characters are very well-developed, and I developed a relationship with each of them. I found myself rooting for Marsh as he slid the Evans alongside the Yamato, and I really wanted Mick to get his life turned around. Finally, I sympathized with Glory and all her struggles. Deutermann does a good job with the factual parts of the book as well, explaining the battles of Savo, Midway, Guadalcanal, and Leyte Gulf very accurately. Highly recommended.

"Pacific Glory" (PG) was copyrighted in 2011 and I bought it a few years later. It did not make much of an impression then, but on a second reading, I found PG compelling and could not put it down. I am not sure why, but PG is not the typical war story, but an excellent and literate novel with complex but credible characters in a complex plot weaving through the USN's great battles in the Pacific. There is a lot of blood and gore, as well as some romance and sex, but none of it unbelievable and the experiences and exploits of the major characters did happen to real people in WWII.The author is a former naval officer, his father was one in the Pacific in WWII, and as far as I could see, everything about the millieu of the USA and the USN starting in the 1930's was accurate. I spotted only one minor mistake: CVL's (light aircraft carriers) were not converted merchant ships, but cruiser hulls completed as small but capable and fast aircraft carriers. With this out of the way, I strongly recommend this book and would also urge buyers to read this novel's "Afterword," for an authoritative closure to the Battle of the Philippine Sea.

Really good read, I have not read and factual books re the battle of Leyte Gulf, what I read in the bibliography of this book, these were exceptionally brave men. More people in this book compared to the other 6 I have read. As I said this a really good read.

P.T. Deutermann is a Naval Academy grad who commanded a destroyer and has written several successful thriller novels, so when he writes of the surface navy in the Pacific during World War II, you expect a lot. This is a thrilling story about three Annapolis grads from the Class of '32, and Glory, the navy nurse they all loved. That may sound like the setup for a romance novel, and there is some personal drama, but this is war as real as you can get from the printed page.Told as a flashback by a retired officer to his stepson, the tale begins with the changing of the Officer of the Deck at the beginning of the midwatch on a heavy cruiser off Guadalcanal in August, 1942. If you know your history you get goosebumps right there. Within minutes that ship is sinking, and our primary protagonist, Lieutenant Marsh Vincent barely escapes going down with her. The details, from a personal perspective, as Japanese cruisers and destroyers clobber the ship, and the sights and sounds of her sinking remain with me yet.One of the friends, husband of Glory, the navy nurse, has gone down with the Arizona before the story starts. The third friend is a dive bomber pilot; brash, fearless, and flawed, who sinks a Japanese carrier at Midway. We live through Guadalcanal, Midway, and the savage but little known naval battle at Samar. Marsh and McCarty are there when the Yamato, the largest battleship ever built, attacks a group of small escort carriers providing air support for the American landing in the Philippines.The tale jumps between action in the Pacific and recovery back at Pearl Harbor. I stayed up way past my bedtime to finish the last 100 pages. You will too.

I have liked all the Deutermann novels I have read, and this one is up there among the best of them. The plot is really well crafted, the battle desciptions are riveting, and as you read the book you really feel as if you are with that community. Well done!

This was my first experience of this author. The book was well written and obviously well researched. A good fictional account of what it must have been like in that theatre

A well written fiction, based on fact, of carrier operations in the pacific during WW2. Written around a minor love story involving two army nurses, it begins with the night battles of Iron Bottom Sound, accounts of the major events of Midway and the battles around Guadalcanal. Ending with the battle of Leyte Gulf with an almost blow by blow description of the destroyer action that fought like a battleship, and resulted in the captain being awarded the Medal of Honor. I read it twice right of the bat and could go another round. A gripping tale of heroism and devotion to duty that ends happily ever after. Worth every penny it cost.

Another good story using some historical background from the author.

I have read all the author's books and found them exciting and original but this I just found dull. You can't change the course of history so that limits the fiction you can place in a book like this but you can, at least, make it interesting. This reads as if it were a book written before the author had a publishing deal and has been released because the author had nothing else available. Not worth the publishers price.