Sentinels of Fire

World War II Navy, Book 3

By: P. T. Deutermann

Narrated by: Dick Hill

Length: 10 hrs and 59 mins

Publisher's summary

A dramatic World War II adventure set on a US destroyer under ferocious kamikaze attack, by the Boyd Award-winning author of Pacific Glory.

By the spring of 1945, the once mighty Japanese fleet has been virtually destroyed, leaving Japan open to invasion. The Japanese react by dispatching hundreds of suicide bombers against the Allied fleet surrounding Okinawa. By mid-May, the Allied fleet is losing a major ship a day to murderous swarms of kamikazes streaming out of Formosa and southern Japan. The radar picket line is the first defense and early warning against these hellish formations, but the Japanese direct special attention to these lone destroyers stationed north and west of Okinawa.

One destroyer, the USS Malloy, faces an even more pressing issue when her Executive Officer Connie Miles begins to realize that the ship's much-admired Captain Pudge Tallmadge is losing his mind under the relentless pressure of the attacks. Set against the blazing gun battles created by the last desperate offensive of the Japanese, Executive Officer Miles and the ship's officers grapple with the consequences of losing their skipper's guidance - and perhaps the ship itself and everyone on board.

Vividly authentic, historically accurate, and emotionally compelling, Sentinels of Fire is military adventure at its best.

©2014 P. T. Deutermann (P)2014 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved. Published by arrangement with St. Martin’s Press, LLC.

Dick Hill is a tremendous performer.

The book was intense and performed to perfection by Dick Hill. I suggest the whole series.

Impressive telling

Commander Deutermann provided an excellent recount of the events of the “Tin Can sailors” crucial role during WWII. I highly recommend this excellent novel.

one of the top ten ever.

this book had me riveted from stem to stern.amazingans now one of my favorites

Destroyer Picket Line - Okinawa

I knew of the WW2 Kamakazie attacks at the end of the war but never read much about them. I thought they were occasional and not something that had any impact on how the war was being waged at the end. This story is remarkable in telling the plight of the destroyer picket line that was supposed to give the carriers and big gun ships warning of what was coming. And what was coming was horrendous. Before Okinawa, it was thought that there might be 500 or so planes left for Kamakazie attacks. It turns out there were more like 5,000. And teenage Japanese boys (watch the U tube videos) were willing and eager to fly themselves into American ships since that was about the only viable weapon Japan had left for waging the naval war.

This story is more than a story about naval heroism on the picket line American destroyers. The author attempts to give the flavor of what it was like to serve on one of those destroyers on the picket line.

On a side note, I was a college wrestler in the late 1960s on a top ranked NCAA Division II team. The coach recruited Japanese High School Champions, from Japan of course. They did well. One was an NCAA Division I National Champion.

I wish I had not been too reserved to talk with one of my Japanese teammates about his three uncles who had been Kamakazie pilots. He was outspoken and would have told me. (My father piloted B-29s off of Tinian with the fire bombings of Japan at the end of the war. My teammates never knew that.) My teammate and the other three Japanese wrestlers on the team, also my friends, were more serious and different from the other guys on the team who were White and Afro-American. Probably cultural. But also a work ethic that was very strong, like the work ethic that built Japan into an international economic power in the years after the war.

Today three of them now have successful businesses in Washington, Oregon, and Michigan. I know that I, born in 1947, was heavily influenced by all the WWII veterans who surrounded me as a kid: both of my parents, relatives, neighbors, teachers, work supervisors, and men I worked with in my 20s and 30s. How would my friends from Japan have been influenced by the people they grew up with, people who lived through the war?

I think of Maus, Koji, Yoshi, and Toshi sometimes when I read books about the war with Japan. And I read books like Capt. Duetermann's books to understand the kinds of things the men and women veterans who influenced me growing up went through in their 20s, the years in our lives that I believe are the foundation to our adult personalities and lives.

Wonderful book

While Dick Hill can make any book a wonder to hear ‘tis ppl was great by itself.

The vivid images painted of combat

Masterful blow by blow of combat by the destroyers and their crews. Dick Hill does a superb job (he narrated all of W. E. B. Griffith's The Corps Series. The end has an unexpected and beautiful ending to a horrific story.

An outstanding story of the Destroyers on the picket line at Okinawa in 1945

My father was with 10th Army on Okinawa in 1945 so I grew up hearing stories of the land battle there all my life. I had a chance to spend 3 weeks there during the Vietnam War and got to visit where my father was stationed at Naha. This interest in the island drew me to P T Deutermann's epic saga of the Destroyers on the picket line just north of Okinawa during the historic campaign there from April to June 1945.
This story is very well told and the detail is incredible. It is a page turner of a book (as are all of P T Deutermann's tales) and highly recommended. If you are seeking to really understand what the Navy went through during this campaign, this is the book for you.
The narration and audio are top notch. I'm picky about that since I figure that if I am going to invest a significant amount of time studying a period of history I want it to sound right. This is very well done and I'm glad I set the the time aside to listen to it.

well told

great narrator for a very intense story
very personal for those loved ones whose family members served on a destroyer in this war.

I Salute This Work

A novel yes, but a realistic view of the horrors that faced the U.S. Navy at the Pacific front during World War 2. I salute this work and highly recommend it.

Outstanding!!! Hmc usn retired

Best book I have ever read. I was 21 years in navy on active service