Waddling to War on LST 834: The Ventures and Adventures of a Skylarking Sailor in World War II Review

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(More customer reviews)There are so few books written by veterans who toiled on backwater bases and ships during WWII. Dr. Shannon does the LST crews and their brethren on the various amphibian and support vessels a great service by telling of the tedium and occasional danger visited upon them. We lost a lot of
LSTs during the war as well as attack transports, minelayers/sweepers,and general auxillaries. While the press covered the carriers, battleships, cruisers and destroyers, the real heavy lifting was done by the dumpy ships.

I'm not sure if democracy is any way to run a naval vessel, but the treatment of enlisted men by some (not many) officers should have been addressed through a grievance process of some type. I recall we radiomen being told that we couldn't use the head in the nearby CIC any longer because the new Operations Officer found a "floater" in the bowl after an enlisted radioman had used it. Fortunately, we had a great division officer who asked the Captain if he wanted the radio watch to have to sign off and go four decks down to use the nearest enlisted head while communicating with our patrol planes.

Sorry to digress. Dr. Shannon has written a great little retro diary that any era of Bluejacket will appreciate - maybe some other folks too. If you want to see a little bit of what he experienced, check out and watch "Mr. Roberts" - kinda hokey, but a fairly true representation of what life was like in non-glamor navy of WWII.

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Product Description:
Waddling to War is the story of a skylarking sailor"s two years in the Navy during World War 11. The focus is on the experiences aboard LST (Landing Ship Tank) 834 and its journey from Pittsburgh to the Invasion of Okinawa and on to China, a highly circuitous trip fraught with a million problems. A seaman when he entered the Navy, a seaman when he was discharged from the Navy, Bob Shannon was, indeed, a sorry sailor. The story is funny, tragic, and revealing.

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