Fighting the Sea; Or, Winter at the Life-Saving Station

“In the cosmos of a tragedy, even one or two mitigating moments can turn aside an unqualified disaster. But sometimes disaster is without defect, and every one of the thousand instants on which destinies turn goes terribly and perfectly wrong.””

— Unknown

“At the secret desert lab, scientists had devised two atomic bomb designs: an implosion type using plutonium, and a gun type using uranium. Parsons’s primary assignment was the assembly of the gun-type uranium bomb. He would actually complete that job inside the belly of the Enola Gay, the B-29 Superfortress that would deliver the bomb to its target. Because B-29s had a proclivity for crashing on takeoff, and because the uranium bomb was so dangerous, Groves decided that the “gadget,” as they called it, must be assembled in the air.””

— Unknown

“In Arizona, being Mexican hadn’t been a big deal. In fact, it was a Mexican kid who had given Celaya his nickname, “Harpo.” The kid said Celaya’s puffy hair looked like Harpo Marx’s, and Celaya had decided to embrace it. But in the Navy, Harpo’s brown skin was a problem. From boot camp on, it seemed to Harpo that Navy recruiters had stacked the ranks with corn-fed rednecks from the middle and southern states. They called him “Pancho” and “wetback” and wanted to know when he was going to crawl back into that hole in Mexico he’d crawled out of. The rednecks didn’t care that Celaya’s family had been in America for four generations.””

— Unknown

“For many of the men, returning home meant reaching for some kind of “normal” that remained stubbornly out of reach. There wasn’t any notion of “post-traumatic stress” or counseling. Doctors admonished the survivors to just forget about the experience and move on. A good fraction did just that, starting careers as firemen, policemen, salesmen, and engineers. Despite the ministrations of parents and wives, others faltered and stumbled.””

— Unknown

“The admiral was famously unflappable, but found the attack on Pearl Harbor a shattering experience. Spruance revealed this only to his wife and daughter, then waited anxiously for Admiral Chester Nimitz to take over as CincPac”

— Unknown

“It was only that his intellect was in such a constant state of multitasking that he seemed to orbit at altitude, separated from those who operated on a more ordinary plane.””

— Unknown

“a war maxim attributed to Napoleon: Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.””

— Unknown

“I have met many of your brave men who survived the sinking of the Indianapolis. I would like to join them in urging that your national legislature clear their captain’s name. Our peoples have forgiven each other for that terrible war and its consequences. Perhaps it is time your peoples forgave Captain McVay for the humiliation of his unjust conviction.””

— Unknown

“After half a lifetime in the service, McVay was shocked to learn that the business world was different”

— Unknown