The captain of Plunkett for thirteen months, Commander Edward J. Burke, one of Sullivan’s featured protagonists, was in command at Anzio when the ship was the target of seventeen Luftwaffe planes. Sullivan does not romanticize his characters but paints them in real colors. Burke was an excellent ship handler, but also a bully who took a “happy” ship and turned it into a tense one. Burke was a manager who preferred an uncomfortable staff. Years after the war, Kenneth B. Brown, a lieutenant when he served as Plunkett’s gunnery officer, was asked if he was aboard USS Des Moines, a cruiser commanded by Burke, when the interviewer interrupted himself with: “You couldn’t be. You’re smiling.” What could say more about Burke’s command style? Burke was awarded the Navy Cross for what he achieved at Anzio and there is little doubt that he had it coming, but there appears little justice in crediting the captain with the performance of more than 200 men. A unit citation would have been more appropriate.
In addition to Burke, Brown, Feltz, and Gallagher, Sullivan presents John P. Simpson, first lieutenant and leader of the damage control parties. Although Sullivan constructs his narrative around these five individuals, he includes others when information surfaced during his search for links to Plunkett and her experience. Sullivan had no direct contact with Burke; he visited with Brown, Feltz, and Simpson, and contacts with his own family provided what he needed to know about Gallagher, his uncle. Plunkett was a small ship, tiny measured against the likes of USS Missouri or any of the fleet aircraft carriers. Small—but casting a large shadow. Plunkett is cited fifteen times in Samuel Eliot Morison’s United States Naval Operations in World War II. Of Plunkett’s misfortune at Anzio, Morison reports the following: “During the afternoon and evening of 24 January [1944], thirty-three LSTs steamed up to Anzio in time to be on the receiving end of a sensational twilight air raid. First fif-
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121,503 Vessels Online @ internationalmaritimelibrary.org This list is mostly compiled from the “List of Merchant Vessels of the United States” for the years 1867 to 1885+ and several other annuals. Other sources have been used to expand the number of vessels listed and data. This list not only includes American vessels, but also many foreign ones, whether sail, steam, unrigged or not documented. Comments appreciated!
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teen fighter-bombers, then forty-three at dusk, and finally fifty-two after dark attacked the transport area repeatedly. One struck destroyer Plunkett with a 550-pound bomb, killing fifty-three of her crew and disabling the port engine, but she was able to reach Palermo under her own power.” Plunkett was back in the fray for D-Day with movie producer John Ford aboard. Ford used Plunkett as the platform for his filming of the landings. Unsinkable is worth the attention of a wide range of readers. Anyone interested in World War II, the US Navy or sea history will find it attractive. Sullivan’s description of combat situations is gripping and affecting. General readers will find in Unsinkable an example of especially good writing. The author has taken a paucity of information and woven past and present into a seamless fabric that serves as a lasting memorial for a ship and crew that paid dearly for Allied victory in Europe. David O. Whitten, PhD Sullivan’s Island, South Carolina Stories from The Wreckage: A Great Lakes Maritime History Inspired by Shipwrecks by John Odin Jensen (Wisconsin Historical Society Press, Madison, 2019, 297pp, illus, notes, biblio, index, isbn 978-0-87020-902-4; $29.95pb) “It’s not my genre.” Or region, time period, or what-have-you. As a graduate student studying maritime history and archaeology, I can’t tell you how many times I heard fellow students and even some faculty utter these words when it came time to discuss a particular topic in the large but specialized field that examines our maritime past. So, I confess—as a lifelong East Coast resident—the history of the Great Lakes is not my typical arena. Another confession: the author is a colleague and a friend. It is because of our friendship that I decided to read his book in the first place, and boy am I glad I did. Stories from the Wreckage is not just a book on shipwrecks as dive sites nor tales of high drama from the wrecking events, it is a book that masterfully weaves what can be learned from the physical remains of ships on the bottom of the Great Lakes with the stories gleaned from the historical record. Moreover, it ties the role of the SEA HISTORY 175, SUMMER 2021