Twelve Desperate Miles describes the voyage of merchant ship SS Contessa as part of the Allied invasion of North Africa during WW II. The book isn't exactly a gripping, can't-put-it-down page turner, but still it provides an interesting look at this piece of pre-invasion war planning.
The invasion of North Africa, and the planning behind it, is rarely given the attention given to the Normandy Invasion, the Pacific Theater, or more well known European battles. And since it covered a lesser known, less discussed portion of the WWII story, it was that much more interesting to me.

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Another review here starts with:

Historians have so thoroughly fished the drama of World War II that it is hard to believe the subject still has prize catches to offer up, but here comes a keeper.

It would probably be more accurate to say:

Historians have so thoroughly fished the drama of World War II that it is hard to believe that fish of this size are not tossed back into the waters of obscurity.

In other words the story of a banana boat, i.e., a shallow draft freighter that shuttled loads of bananas from Central America to the port of New Orleans, dragooned into wartime service for a possible contingency mission that became obviated as the battle progressed and it was never used. Yawn! ( )

Pretty good book, excellent narrator. WWII history seems to be dominated by several major events: Pearl Harbor, D-Day etc... what I think of as the "popular events" of the war . This book is *not* one of those events and doesn't pretend to be. It's a good book about an invasion of Morocco; definitely worth reading, although I must say that the title is deceiving. I expected desperation (yah?) and there were no tales of incredible survival or desperate circumstances - it described the background and events of the invasion which, I gather, included 12 miles of river navigation which was extreme difficult and harrowing. But desperation? well, I reserve that word for something like "Unbroken" where there truly were desperate people in desperate situations. Regardless, it was a good read and worth it if you want to know more about the war beyond the typical popular events this is well worth it. ( )

A retelling of the famous scheme in the 1942 invasion of the Morocco to reopen the airfield outside of Port Lyautey by direct naval assault up the Sebou River. What makes this exercise worthwhile is that the author has found new primary information about some of the main participants in this operation; French harbor pilot Rene Malevergne (who had been spirited out of Morocco for his knowledge and expertise) and William Henry John, the master of SS "Contessa" that was to provide logistical support to American fighter planes flown off carriers to the base. While this whole endeavor turned out not to be as essential as imagined, it's still a good story well worth telling.

That I don't rate this book a little higher is due to there being a little too much slop for my taste in terms of mistakes; the most egregious one being to credit the American battleship "Mississippi" with being a participant in the naval action off Casablanca against Vichy French forces, instead of the "Massachusetts." ( )