This is a novel of service to the Country. Chief is the first of a trilogy that
describes three generations of a family's service in the nation's wars. Chief
brings accurate first hand descriptions of life aboard ship during the depression
years and World War II, affording a view of naval operations from the
deckplates of the engineering spaces and gun turrets up and reaching all the
way to CinCPac's headquarters in Makalapa, Pearl Harbor and MacArthur
in the Philippines, Australia and Japan. We follow a farm boy from Texas hill
country through each ship in his career; and along the way the extraordinary
contributions of the Navy bluejacket make the case for the Chief Petty Officer
as the backbone of the Fleet.