Departing Nouméa on 31 July 1942, the USS Gregory steamed for Guadalcanal.After sending her Marines ashore in the first assault waves on 7 August, Gregory and her sister APDs remained in the area. The ships patrolled the waters around the hotly contested islands, waters which were to gain notoriety as "Iron Bottom Sound", and brought up ammunition & supplies from Espiritu Santo.On 4 September, Gregory and Little were returning to their anchorage at Tulagi after transferring a Marine Raider Battalion to Savo Island. The night was inky-black with a low haze obscuring all landmarks, and the captains decided to remain on patrol rather than risk threading their way through the dangerous channel. As they steamed between Guadalcanal and Savo Island, Yūdachi, Hatsuyuki,and Murakumo entered the Slot undetected to deliver a "Tokyo Express" package of troops and supplies to Guadalcanal. After completing the delivery, the crews prepared to bombard Henderson Field at Lunga Point.At 00:56 on 5 September, Gregory and Little saw flashes of gunfire which they assumed came from a Japanese submarine until radar showed four targets; apparently a cruiser had joined the 3 destroyers.A Navy pilot had also seen the gunfire and, assuming it came from a Japanese submarine, dropped flares almost on top of the two APDs. Gregory and Little, silhouetted against the blackness, were spotted immediately by the Japanese destroyers, which opened fire at 01:00. Gregory fought back but was overmatched,and less than 3 minutes after the flares had been dropped, she was sinking and in flames. Her skipper, Lieutenant Commander Harry F. Bauer, himself seriously wounded, ordered all to abandon ship, and Gregory's crew took to the water. Bauer ordered two companions to aid another crewman yelling for help and disappeared; for his conduct, he posthumously received the Silver Star and had a ship named after him. At 01:23, the Japanese ships began shelling again-aiming at the helpless crews in the water.Petty Officer First Class Charles French swam for hours in shark-infested waters while towing a life raft with 15 of the Gregory's survivors to avoid capture and possible execution by Japanese forces on land.

A well-done novel of the heroism and fight for survival of a crew during WW2 at Guadalcanal. The horrors they survived were heartbreaking and should serve as a reminder of what our servicemen and women endure. It is sad to think that some were never recognized or awarded as they should have been for their efforts. An inspiring read for all!

Thank you to #NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

While this book was helpful in giving a history of America's military in Ironbottom Sound, there really wasn't much to this book. Only one survivor was interviewed, and few of the survivor's families were interviewed. The focus of this book seemed to be on the survivors of the raft in which one swam in shark-infested waters, but in reality, the description of that event was only a page or two. I had high hopes for this book but I feel like I received a glancing view of a small event in Guadalcanal. Nothing about this book was in-depth.