The extraordinary first and only memoir by a survivor of the USS Arizona, published in conjunction with the seventy-fifth anniversary of Pearl Harbor.
A sailor’s eyewitness, moment-by-moment account of the Japanese surprise attack that sunk the battleship and decimated the U.S. Pacific Fleet in Hawaii on December 7, 1941—and his inspiring return to active duty to carry on the Allied fight in the Pacific
An unforgettable and moving story of tragedy, heroism, resilience, and redemption that is sure to become an enduring document of American history, this is the only memoir published by a survivor of the USS Arizona, the battleship that bore the brunt of the massive Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
On December 7, 1941, the Arizona was moored in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, alongside seven other American battleships. At 7:55 a.m., the leisurely Sunday morning’s serenity was broken by the drone of bomb-laden Japanese Zeros swooping from the sky. The Arizona was the first battleship targeted in a massive surprise attack by the Empire of Japan; 353 imperial war planes swarmed Battleship Row and neighboring Hickam Airfield in a meticulously planned surprise assault launched to cripple America’s Pacific Fleet.
Amid the terrifying chaos of explosions and incessant machine gun fire, nineteen-year-old Seaman First Class Donald Stratton raced to his battle station on the Arizona. Barely fifteen minutes into the attack, a 1,760-pound armor-piercing bomb hit the ship, setting off a million pounds of munitions and 180,000 gallons of aviation fuel aboard. The explosion lifted the massive battleship out of the water causing the forward deck to buckle, and engulfed it in an enormous fifty-foot fireball that tore through the anti-aircraft platform where Don and his team were stationed.
Burned over more than sixty-five percent of his body, Don and his gunnery team miraculously escaped the inferno; using their charred hands, they climbed across a seventy-foot-long rope stretched forty-five feet above flaming, oil-slicked water to reach the Vestal moored nearby. While Don made it out alive, 1,177 of his crewmates perished—more than half the American casualty total of the attack.
But this remarkable story does not end here. After more than a year of grueling treatment, including learning to walk again, Don recovered and doggedly battled Navy bureaucracy to re-enlist. Determined to take the fight to the enemy, he participated in some of the bloodiest battles of the Pacific, including the invasion of New Guinea, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa.
Told in remarkable, never-before-revealed first-person detail, this powerful and uplifting memoir of war and survival resonates with the spirit, heart, and undaunted courage of such beloved bestsellers as Unbroken and The Boys in the Boat.
