James J. Fahey (–1991)

This is a clear memoir of the war career of the USS Montpelier, a Cleveland class cruiser. The Clevelands were a fine balance of ships with good AA capability and good surface action armament. Thus, they are a very good example f the large "Light" cruiser. Fahey was an ordinary sailor and has many useful insights into life on the lower depths, no matter what navy you were in. It could use some maps dealing with some of the actions the ship was in, but this is a small flaw. I had a mass market paperback printed in 1963.… (meer)

4717. Pacific War Diary 1942-1945, by James J. Fahey (read 10 Jun 2010) This diary was kept in secret by Fahey, who was a seaman first class on the USS Montpelier, which had a distinguished career in the Pacific during World War II. I think it probably shows as well as is possible what the life of an enlisted man in the Navy was like. There is no fancy literary flair but the book exudes the admirable traits of the author. He was born July 23, 1918 and joined the Navy in 1942. He served in a deck division on the Montpelier all through the war. Checking via Google, one learns he married in 1970 and was a garbage collector in Waltham, Mass., and died Sept 23, 1991. Samuel Eliot Morison urged him to have his diary published, and he donated the proceeds therefrom to a Catholic church in India. John F. Kennedy and Whizzer White both praised the book. I recall when I took boot in the Navy in 1951 we were warned not to keep a diary. We can be grateful that Fahey did not observe that prohibition.… (meer)

This is the diary of a young American sailor from 1942 to 1945. He was assigned to the U.S.S. Montpelier and was in the Pacific theater.

As diaries go, it is amazing to read this precisely because it wasn't supposed to be kept, and because it covers the daily life of a WWII sailor it contains a sense of that life so vividly in ways that other historical documents cannot replicate. The defining sense of this diary is the wide swing between utter horror and danger to plain everyday boredom and hard tasks. Most of the diary is filled with the commonplace: how it rains most nights and no one can sleep, how the hold is far too hot, how there are bugs in the bread, what is for dinner, what amenities he goes without, when the mail arrives, and when services are held. Then it swings (even in the space of one sentence to the next) to some tragedy or horror. He learns the fate of his family through letters from his sister. Members of his ship are hurt or killed through accidents, bad luck in dangerous surroundings, and through the event of battle. He recounts what happens to other ships in the areas, and the fates of many a solider and sailor, as well as those of the enemies that they encounter. Some of the descriptions are so simple, so plainly told, that the reader is left gaping at the information, until the next sentence takes them from tragedy to the common misery of life on a ship.… (meer)