A young sailor survives the Japanese bomb that gutted the USS Arizona, is discharged from service due to the severity of his injuries, but he fights his way back into the Navy to avenge his shipmates.
At 8:06 a.m. on December 7, 1941, Seaman First Class Donald Stratton wasconsumed by an inferno. A million pounds of explosives had detonated beneathhis battle station aboard the USS Arizona, barely fifteen minutes into Japan'ssurprise attack on American forces at Pearl Harbour. Near death and burnedacross two thirds of his body, Don, a nineteen-year-old Nebraskan who hadbeen steeled by the Great Depression and Dust Bowl, summoned the will tohaul himself hand over hand across a rope tethered to a neighboring vessel.Forty-five feet below, the harbor's flaming, oil-slick water boiled with enemybullets; all around him the world tore itself apart. In this extraordinary, never before-told eyewitness account of the Pearl Harbour attack-the only memoirever written by a survivor of the USS Arizona-ninety-four-year-old DonaldStratton finally shares his unforgettable personal tale of bravery and survival onDecember 7, 1941, his harrowing recovery, and his inspiring determination toreturn to the fight.Don and four other sailors made it safely across the same line that morning, asmall miracle on a day that claimed the lives of 1,177 of their Arizona shipmates-approximately half the American fatalities at Pearl Harbour. Sent to militaryhospitals for a year, Don refused doctors' advice to amputate his limbs andbattled to relearn how to walk. The U.S. Navy gave him a medical discharge,believing he would never again be fit for service, but Don had unfinishedbusiness. In June 1944, he sailed back into the teeth of the Pacific War on adestroyer, destined for combat in the crucial battles of Leyte Gulf, Luzon, andOkinawa, thus earning the distinction of having been present for the openingshots and the final major battle of America's Second World War.
