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Book Summary and Reviews of Escape from the Deep by Alex Kershaw

Escape from the Deep by Alex Kershaw

Escape from the Deep

The Epic Story of a Legendary Submarine and Her Courageous Crew

by Alex Kershaw

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  • Published:
  • Apr 2008, 270 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

The adrenaline-soaked story of nine men who fought the Japanese from America's deadliest submarine, survived its sinking, and endured months of brutal torture in captivity.

By October, 1944, the U.S. Navy submarine Tang was legendary--she had sunk more enemy ships, rescued more downed airmen, and pulled off more daring surface attacks than any other Allied submarine in the Pacific. And then, on her fifth patrol, tragedy struck--the Tang was hit by one of her own faulty torpedoes. The survivors of the explosion struggled to stay alive in their submerged "iron coffin" one hundred-eighty feet beneath the surface. While the Japanese dropped deadly depth charges, just nine of the original eighty-man crew survived a harrowing ascent through the escape hatch.

But a far greater ordeal was coming. After being picked up by a Japanese patrol vessel, they were sent to a secret Japanese interrogation camp known as the "Torture Farm." They were close to death when finally liberated in August, 1945, but they had revealed nothing to the Japanese--not even the greatest secret of World War II.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Starred Review. Relying on interviews with survivors and oral histories, and writing with his customary verve, Kershaw delivers another memorable tale of uncommon courage." - Publishers Weekly.

"Stitched together from first-person accounts, Kershaw's action-packed, character-driven narrative of this extraordinary crew's exploits concludes with a poignant wrap-up of the survivors' later years. Reads like the best suspense fiction." - Kirkus Reviews.

This information about Escape from the Deep was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

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Author Information

Alex Kershaw

Alex Kershaw is also the author of The Bedford Boys, The Longest Winter, and The Few, and two biographies: Jack London and Blood and Champagne: The Life and Times of Robert Capa. He lives in Williamstown, Massachusetts.

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