Click the links below for more information:
Many people have put years worth of effort into the sites below. So as not to duplicate their work and make more work for myself, I'd like to give them some space here. Visit them often, they have much to offer. If you have any questions about the research or information potential of these sites, just ask.
Below the internet links you will find a list of books I use as reference materials. I recommend reading them to gain a bit of insight on what life was like at sea for a young man far from home.
DPAA, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency in Honolulu, HI, the US government agency responsible for locating, identifying and repatriating remains of American service men and women lost in foreign wars.
Naval War College Museum and library archives, Newport, Rhode Island- thanks so much to Bob Cembrola, John Pentangelo, Evelyn Cherpak and former director John Hattendorf for their time, expertise and support! The museum sits on Coasters Harbor Island in Narraganssett Bay, a beautiful and historic place to visit.
Destroyer History Foundation, a comprehensive site for information on all classes of destroyers from WWII- thanks to the late and great Dave McComb. Dave has passed, but the site lives on. He built a wonderful and resourceful site, a definitive site for the history of ships from WWII. The site was down for a bit, but has been restored!!! 6/15/2022
*USS STRONG DD-467 page on Destroyer History site.
Andrew Wilde's account of Strong and it's history.
Blue Water Recoveries, LTD, and David L. Mearns. The owner of this company is much accomplished and has been wonderful. What a great job he has!
Vulcan, Inc., company website for Paul G. Allen. To access video of IJN Musashi expedition.
RV PETREL: research vessel owned by Vulcan, Inc., company of the late Paul Allen.
USS STRONG DD-467/758 Association; Ron Impello, President.
Project PRIAM, POW/MIA Database and Pacific Wrecks- thanks to Daniel Leahy for posting a memorial to Uncle Billy and other men lost on STRONG.
National Personnel Records Center, St. Louis, MO- for personnel records of your ancestors; Navy, Air Force, Army, Marines, etc.
http://www.archives.gov/veterans/military-service-records/ - documents to download to order military records.
National Purple Heart Hall of Honor. They have added Uncle Billy to the Hall of Honor.
National Museum of the Pacific War, Fredericksburg, Texas.
National WWII Museum, New Orleans, LA. #2 Museum in the US and in the world! Amazing place.
Research a Veteran guide can be found here.
To see a Fletcher-class destroyer still in original condition, the USS KIDD DD-661 in Baton Rouge, LA. We will be back when it's time to film the movie for The Castaway's War.
An Allen Sumner-class destroyer is the USS LAFFEY DD 724, recently restored and berthed at Patriot's Point in Charleston, South Carolina:
Japanese Army Operations in the South Pacific Area.
American Naval Records Society.
Northwestern University military history, Midshipmans School and the V-7 Program.
The Navy Department Library.
Naval History and Heritage Command - a plethora of helpful museum, library and archive links!
Long Lancers, page devoted to Japanese warships that carried the Long Lance torpedo. This page details the ship that sunk STRONG, the IJN NIIZUKI.
Bath Iron Works in Bath, Maine built the lion's share of the Fletcher Class Destroyers.
Maine Maritime Museum, down the road from ship building facility.
Tin Can Sailors, Inc., P.O. Box 100, Somerset, MS 02726 - join to support museum ships and receive news on the history of the Fletcher-class destroyers.
American Battle Monuments Commission, cemetery and memorial in Honolulu, Hawaii.
National WWII Memorial in Washington, D.C.
American WW2 Memorial in Manila, Philippines.
Deep Sea Detectives diver Richie Kohler has a web site dedicated to a German U-boat found off the east coast of the US.
On His Majesty's Service by Rear Admiral Joseph H. Wellings, U.S. Navy.
Historian David Sears, web site for purchasing books on WW2 history.
Universal Ship Cancellation Society, (USCS) website for researching naval covers (cachets) and postmarks.
WFI Research Group
Since our beginnings in 1984, the group has been dedicated to one goal, the compilation and preservation of World War II records. We have systematically arranged the primary source documentation into various database formats which allow for a speedy retrieval of information to meet our research needs.
WW2 Database, Developed and run by C. Peter Chen, a very well done site documenting both Pacific and Atlantic theaters.
Stephen Harding books from Da Capo Press.
Research vessel ALUCIA and Ray Dalio's OceanX.
Schmidt Ocean Institute and the FALKOR (TOO) research vessel. Our friend David Mearns of Blue Water Recoveries, LTD is on the board at Schmidt.
History Flight, a non-profit organization that locates, recovers and repatriates the remains of lost military personnel from all wars.
Project Recover, a non-profit with a mission to bring America's MIA's from the times after WW2 home.
US Ship Sites:
USS O'Bannon DD 450
USS Chevalier DD 451
USS Helena CL-50
USS Honolulu CL-48
USS Nicholas DD 449
USS St. Louis CL-49
Japanese Ship Sites:
IJN Nagatsuki
IJN Niizuki
IJN Satsuki
IJN Yunagi
Books and written resources:
Altobello, Brian; Into the Shadows Furious: The Brutal Battle for New Georgia, Presidio Press, 2000
ISBN 0-89141-717-6
Ballard, Robert D.; The Discovery of the Bismarck, Madison Publishing, 1990.
ISBN 0-446-51386-5
Calhoun, C. Raymond; Tin Can Sailor: Life Aboard the USS STERETT 1939-1945, Bluejacket Books, Naval Institute Press, 1993
ISBN 1-55750-228-5
Crenshaw, Russell Sydnor Jr.; South Pacific Destroyer: The Battle for the Solomons from Savo Island to Vella Gulf, Naval Institute Press, 1998
ISBN 978-1-59114-143-3
Darnton, John; Almost a Family: A Memoir, Alfred A. Knopf Publishing, division of Random House, 2011
ISBN 978-0-30726-617-0
Darnton's web site: http://johndarnton.com/
Domagalski, John J.: Sunk in Kula Gulf: The Final Voyage of the USS Helena and the Incredible Story of her Survivors in WWII, Potomac Books, Inc., 2012
ISBN 978-1597978392
Hara, Capt. Tameichi; Japanese Destroyer Captain: Pearl Harbor, Guadalcanal, Midway – The Great Naval Battles as Seen Through Japanese Eyes, Naval Institute Press, 1967
ISBN 978-1-59114-384-0
Harding, Stephen; Escape From Paris: A True Story of Love and Resistance in Wartime France. Da Capo Press, October 2019,
ISBNs: 978-0-306-92216-9
Harding, Stephen; Dawn of Infamy: A Sunken Ship, a Vanished Crew, and the Final Mystery of Pearl Harbor, Da Capo Press, November 2016,
ISBN: 0306825031, 9780306825033
Harding, Stephen; The Castaway's War: One Man's Battle Against Imperial Japan, Da Capo Press, May 2016, ISBN 978-0-306-82340-4
Harding, Stephen: The Last to Die: A Defeated Empire, a Forgotten Mission, and the Last American Killed in World War II , Da Capo Press, July 2015,
ISBN13:9780306823381
Harding, Stephen (editor-in-chief of Military History magazine); The Last Battle, Da Capo Press, May 2013, ISBN 978-0-306-82208-7
Hattendorf, John B, editor.; On His Majesty’s Service by Rear Admiral Joseph H. Wellings, US Navy Retired, Naval War College Historical Monograph Series No. 5, Naval War College Press, Newport, Rhode Island, 02841
Hillenbrand, Laura; Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, Random House Publishing Group, 2010
ISBN 978-1-4000-6416-8
Hornfischer, James D.; The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy’s Finest Hour, Bantam Books, 2004
ISBN 0-553-38148-2
Hornfischer, James D.; Neptune’s Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal, Bantam Books, 2011
ISBN 978-0-553-38512-0
Johnson, Clint: Tin Cans & Greyhounds: The Destroyers That Won Two World Wars, Regenery History, 2019,
ISBN 978-1-62157-647-1
Kehn, Donald M. Jr.; A Blue Sea of Blood: Deciphering the Mysterious Fate of the USS EDSALL, Zenith Press, 2008
ISBN 978-0-7603-3353-2
Kiernan, Denise, The Girls of Atomic City: the untold story of the women who helped win WW2, Atria Books 2014, ISBN-10: 1451617534, ISBN-13:978-1451617535
McComb, Dave; US Destroyers 1934-1945: Pre-War Classes, Osprey Books, 2010
ISBN 978-1-8460-3443-5
McComb, Dave; US Destroyers 1942-1945: Wartime Classes, Osprey Books, 2010
Manning, Molly Guptil; When Books Went to War, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014, ISBN-10 0544570405
Mearns, David and Bob White; Hood and Bismarck: The Deep-Sea Discovery of an Epic Battle, Pan MacMillan Publishing, 2001
ISBN 0 7522 2035 7
Mearns, David L.; The Search for the Sydney: How Australia’s Greatest Maritime Mystery was Solved, Harper Collins Publishers, 2009
ABN 36 009 913 517
Mearns, David L: The Shipwreck Hunter: A lifetime of extraordinary discovery and adventure in the deep seas, Allen & Unwin Publishers, 2017, New South Wales, Australia; ISBN: 978 1 76029 521 9 (available in the UK in October and in the US in 2018)
Miller, Landon C. G.; Lt. “Rose Bowl” Miller: The U.S. Navy’s One Man Army, self-published 2010
Mott Freeman, Sally; The Jersey Brothers: Missing Naval Officer in the Pacific and His Family's Quest to Bring Him Home, May 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5011-0414-5
Mundy, Liza, Code Girls, Hachette Books, 2018, ISBN-10: 0316352543, ISBN-13:978-0316352543
Mundy, Liza, The Sisterhood: The Secret History of Women at the CIA, Crown Publishing 2023, ISBN-10:0593238176, ISBN-13: 978-0593238172
Raven, Alan; Fletcher-Class Destroyers, United States Naval Institute Press, 1986ISBN 0-87021-147-1
Rose, Sarah, D-Day Girls: the Spies Who Armed the Resistance, Sabotaged the Nazis and Helped Win WW2, Crown Publishing 2014, ISBN-10: 0451495098, ISBN-13: 978-0451495099
Schmidt, Shannon McKenna, The First Lady of WW2, Sourcebooks 2023, ISBN-10:1728256615, ISBN-13:978-1728256610
Scutts, Jerry; Fletcher DD’s in Action, Warship Number 8, Squadron/Signal Publications, 1995
ISBN 0-89747-336-1
Sheehan, Susan; A Missing Plane: The Dramatic Tragedy and Triumph of a Lost and Forgotten World War II Bomber, Berkley Books, 1986
ISBN 0-425 10553-9
Sumrall, Robert F.; USS KIDD (DD 661), Tin Can Sailors Publishing, 2002
ISBN 0-9707722-3-8
Tobin, James; Ernie Pyle's War: American's Eyewitness to World War II, The Free Press (division of Simon & Schuster), 1997
ISBN 0-684-83642-4
Vincent, Lynn and Sara Vladic: INDIANAPOLIS: The True Story of the Worst Sea Disaster in U.S. Naval History and the Fifty-Year Fight to Exonerate
an Innocent Man, Simon & Schuster, 2018
ISBN 978-5011-3594-1
Wukovits, John; Tin Can Titans: The Heroic Men and Ships of World War II's Most Decorated Navy Destroyer Squadron, Da Capo Press, 2017
ISBN: 9780306824302
100 Best Stories of World War II, Wm.H. Wise and Company, Inc., Copyright 1945 by Stratford Press
“The Castaway of Arundel Island, Lieut. Hugh Barr Miller, page 219
Below the internet links you will find a list of books I use as reference materials. I recommend reading them to gain a bit of insight on what life was like at sea for a young man far from home.
DPAA, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency in Honolulu, HI, the US government agency responsible for locating, identifying and repatriating remains of American service men and women lost in foreign wars.
Naval War College Museum and library archives, Newport, Rhode Island- thanks so much to Bob Cembrola, John Pentangelo, Evelyn Cherpak and former director John Hattendorf for their time, expertise and support! The museum sits on Coasters Harbor Island in Narraganssett Bay, a beautiful and historic place to visit.
Destroyer History Foundation, a comprehensive site for information on all classes of destroyers from WWII- thanks to the late and great Dave McComb. Dave has passed, but the site lives on. He built a wonderful and resourceful site, a definitive site for the history of ships from WWII. The site was down for a bit, but has been restored!!! 6/15/2022
*USS STRONG DD-467 page on Destroyer History site.
Andrew Wilde's account of Strong and it's history.
Blue Water Recoveries, LTD, and David L. Mearns. The owner of this company is much accomplished and has been wonderful. What a great job he has!
Vulcan, Inc., company website for Paul G. Allen. To access video of IJN Musashi expedition.
RV PETREL: research vessel owned by Vulcan, Inc., company of the late Paul Allen.
USS STRONG DD-467/758 Association; Ron Impello, President.
Project PRIAM, POW/MIA Database and Pacific Wrecks- thanks to Daniel Leahy for posting a memorial to Uncle Billy and other men lost on STRONG.
National Personnel Records Center, St. Louis, MO- for personnel records of your ancestors; Navy, Air Force, Army, Marines, etc.
http://www.archives.gov/veterans/military-service-records/ - documents to download to order military records.
National Purple Heart Hall of Honor. They have added Uncle Billy to the Hall of Honor.
National Museum of the Pacific War, Fredericksburg, Texas.
National WWII Museum, New Orleans, LA. #2 Museum in the US and in the world! Amazing place.
Research a Veteran guide can be found here.
To see a Fletcher-class destroyer still in original condition, the USS KIDD DD-661 in Baton Rouge, LA. We will be back when it's time to film the movie for The Castaway's War.
An Allen Sumner-class destroyer is the USS LAFFEY DD 724, recently restored and berthed at Patriot's Point in Charleston, South Carolina:
Japanese Army Operations in the South Pacific Area.
American Naval Records Society.
Northwestern University military history, Midshipmans School and the V-7 Program.
The Navy Department Library.
Naval History and Heritage Command - a plethora of helpful museum, library and archive links!
Long Lancers, page devoted to Japanese warships that carried the Long Lance torpedo. This page details the ship that sunk STRONG, the IJN NIIZUKI.
Bath Iron Works in Bath, Maine built the lion's share of the Fletcher Class Destroyers.
Maine Maritime Museum, down the road from ship building facility.
Tin Can Sailors, Inc., P.O. Box 100, Somerset, MS 02726 - join to support museum ships and receive news on the history of the Fletcher-class destroyers.
American Battle Monuments Commission, cemetery and memorial in Honolulu, Hawaii.
National WWII Memorial in Washington, D.C.
American WW2 Memorial in Manila, Philippines.
Deep Sea Detectives diver Richie Kohler has a web site dedicated to a German U-boat found off the east coast of the US.
On His Majesty's Service by Rear Admiral Joseph H. Wellings, U.S. Navy.
Historian David Sears, web site for purchasing books on WW2 history.
Universal Ship Cancellation Society, (USCS) website for researching naval covers (cachets) and postmarks.
WFI Research Group
Since our beginnings in 1984, the group has been dedicated to one goal, the compilation and preservation of World War II records. We have systematically arranged the primary source documentation into various database formats which allow for a speedy retrieval of information to meet our research needs.
WW2 Database, Developed and run by C. Peter Chen, a very well done site documenting both Pacific and Atlantic theaters.
Stephen Harding books from Da Capo Press.
Research vessel ALUCIA and Ray Dalio's OceanX.
Schmidt Ocean Institute and the FALKOR (TOO) research vessel. Our friend David Mearns of Blue Water Recoveries, LTD is on the board at Schmidt.
History Flight, a non-profit organization that locates, recovers and repatriates the remains of lost military personnel from all wars.
Project Recover, a non-profit with a mission to bring America's MIA's from the times after WW2 home.
US Ship Sites:
USS O'Bannon DD 450
USS Chevalier DD 451
USS Helena CL-50
USS Honolulu CL-48
USS Nicholas DD 449
USS St. Louis CL-49
Japanese Ship Sites:
IJN Nagatsuki
IJN Niizuki
IJN Satsuki
IJN Yunagi
Books and written resources:
Altobello, Brian; Into the Shadows Furious: The Brutal Battle for New Georgia, Presidio Press, 2000
ISBN 0-89141-717-6
Ballard, Robert D.; The Discovery of the Bismarck, Madison Publishing, 1990.
ISBN 0-446-51386-5
Calhoun, C. Raymond; Tin Can Sailor: Life Aboard the USS STERETT 1939-1945, Bluejacket Books, Naval Institute Press, 1993
ISBN 1-55750-228-5
Crenshaw, Russell Sydnor Jr.; South Pacific Destroyer: The Battle for the Solomons from Savo Island to Vella Gulf, Naval Institute Press, 1998
ISBN 978-1-59114-143-3
Darnton, John; Almost a Family: A Memoir, Alfred A. Knopf Publishing, division of Random House, 2011
ISBN 978-0-30726-617-0
Darnton's web site: http://johndarnton.com/
Domagalski, John J.: Sunk in Kula Gulf: The Final Voyage of the USS Helena and the Incredible Story of her Survivors in WWII, Potomac Books, Inc., 2012
ISBN 978-1597978392
Hara, Capt. Tameichi; Japanese Destroyer Captain: Pearl Harbor, Guadalcanal, Midway – The Great Naval Battles as Seen Through Japanese Eyes, Naval Institute Press, 1967
ISBN 978-1-59114-384-0
Harding, Stephen; Escape From Paris: A True Story of Love and Resistance in Wartime France. Da Capo Press, October 2019,
ISBNs: 978-0-306-92216-9
Harding, Stephen; Dawn of Infamy: A Sunken Ship, a Vanished Crew, and the Final Mystery of Pearl Harbor, Da Capo Press, November 2016,
ISBN: 0306825031, 9780306825033
Harding, Stephen; The Castaway's War: One Man's Battle Against Imperial Japan, Da Capo Press, May 2016, ISBN 978-0-306-82340-4
Harding, Stephen: The Last to Die: A Defeated Empire, a Forgotten Mission, and the Last American Killed in World War II , Da Capo Press, July 2015,
ISBN13:9780306823381
Harding, Stephen (editor-in-chief of Military History magazine); The Last Battle, Da Capo Press, May 2013, ISBN 978-0-306-82208-7
Hattendorf, John B, editor.; On His Majesty’s Service by Rear Admiral Joseph H. Wellings, US Navy Retired, Naval War College Historical Monograph Series No. 5, Naval War College Press, Newport, Rhode Island, 02841
Hillenbrand, Laura; Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, Random House Publishing Group, 2010
ISBN 978-1-4000-6416-8
Hornfischer, James D.; The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy’s Finest Hour, Bantam Books, 2004
ISBN 0-553-38148-2
Hornfischer, James D.; Neptune’s Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal, Bantam Books, 2011
ISBN 978-0-553-38512-0
Johnson, Clint: Tin Cans & Greyhounds: The Destroyers That Won Two World Wars, Regenery History, 2019,
ISBN 978-1-62157-647-1
Kehn, Donald M. Jr.; A Blue Sea of Blood: Deciphering the Mysterious Fate of the USS EDSALL, Zenith Press, 2008
ISBN 978-0-7603-3353-2
Kiernan, Denise, The Girls of Atomic City: the untold story of the women who helped win WW2, Atria Books 2014, ISBN-10: 1451617534, ISBN-13:978-1451617535
McComb, Dave; US Destroyers 1934-1945: Pre-War Classes, Osprey Books, 2010
ISBN 978-1-8460-3443-5
McComb, Dave; US Destroyers 1942-1945: Wartime Classes, Osprey Books, 2010
Manning, Molly Guptil; When Books Went to War, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014, ISBN-10 0544570405
Mearns, David and Bob White; Hood and Bismarck: The Deep-Sea Discovery of an Epic Battle, Pan MacMillan Publishing, 2001
ISBN 0 7522 2035 7
Mearns, David L.; The Search for the Sydney: How Australia’s Greatest Maritime Mystery was Solved, Harper Collins Publishers, 2009
ABN 36 009 913 517
Mearns, David L: The Shipwreck Hunter: A lifetime of extraordinary discovery and adventure in the deep seas, Allen & Unwin Publishers, 2017, New South Wales, Australia; ISBN: 978 1 76029 521 9 (available in the UK in October and in the US in 2018)
Miller, Landon C. G.; Lt. “Rose Bowl” Miller: The U.S. Navy’s One Man Army, self-published 2010
Mott Freeman, Sally; The Jersey Brothers: Missing Naval Officer in the Pacific and His Family's Quest to Bring Him Home, May 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5011-0414-5
Mundy, Liza, Code Girls, Hachette Books, 2018, ISBN-10: 0316352543, ISBN-13:978-0316352543
Mundy, Liza, The Sisterhood: The Secret History of Women at the CIA, Crown Publishing 2023, ISBN-10:0593238176, ISBN-13: 978-0593238172
Raven, Alan; Fletcher-Class Destroyers, United States Naval Institute Press, 1986ISBN 0-87021-147-1
Rose, Sarah, D-Day Girls: the Spies Who Armed the Resistance, Sabotaged the Nazis and Helped Win WW2, Crown Publishing 2014, ISBN-10: 0451495098, ISBN-13: 978-0451495099
Schmidt, Shannon McKenna, The First Lady of WW2, Sourcebooks 2023, ISBN-10:1728256615, ISBN-13:978-1728256610
Scutts, Jerry; Fletcher DD’s in Action, Warship Number 8, Squadron/Signal Publications, 1995
ISBN 0-89747-336-1
Sheehan, Susan; A Missing Plane: The Dramatic Tragedy and Triumph of a Lost and Forgotten World War II Bomber, Berkley Books, 1986
ISBN 0-425 10553-9
Sumrall, Robert F.; USS KIDD (DD 661), Tin Can Sailors Publishing, 2002
ISBN 0-9707722-3-8
Tobin, James; Ernie Pyle's War: American's Eyewitness to World War II, The Free Press (division of Simon & Schuster), 1997
ISBN 0-684-83642-4
Vincent, Lynn and Sara Vladic: INDIANAPOLIS: The True Story of the Worst Sea Disaster in U.S. Naval History and the Fifty-Year Fight to Exonerate
an Innocent Man, Simon & Schuster, 2018
ISBN 978-5011-3594-1
Wukovits, John; Tin Can Titans: The Heroic Men and Ships of World War II's Most Decorated Navy Destroyer Squadron, Da Capo Press, 2017
ISBN: 9780306824302
100 Best Stories of World War II, Wm.H. Wise and Company, Inc., Copyright 1945 by Stratford Press
“The Castaway of Arundel Island, Lieut. Hugh Barr Miller, page 219