200,000 miles aboard the destroyer Cotten

the long version

"In mid-June 1943, Snelling Robinson, a twenty-year-old Harvard graduate and freshly commissioned ensign in the U.S. Naval Reserve, joined the precommissioning crew of the Fletcher-class destroyer USS Cotten. The new crew trained for the remainder of the summer and then sailed to Pearl Harbor in time to join the newly established Fifth Fleet. Under the command of Adm. Raymond Spruance, the Fifth Fleet was given orders to invade Tarawa in the Gilbert Islands in November 1943.". "Robinson chronicles this offensive, along with the naval battles in the Philippine Sea and Leyte Gulf and the invasion of Iwo Jima in February 1945 from his perspective as a young deck officer." "After Japan's surrender, the Cotten became a part of the Occupation Force anchored in Tokyo Bay. Robinson smoothly narrates how he and his friends took advantage of their good luck and brought their roles in the war to a fitting conclusion."--BOOK JACKET.