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 Author  Topic: New PT Boat Book
Dick

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of Dick   Send Email To Dick Posted on: Mar 30, 2012 - 10:13am
Hi All . . .

I received and email from one of our message board buddies, Bridge Carney yesterday. He was letting me know he had finally finished his book on PT-157 detailing the actions and service of the boat and its crew members in the summer of '43. I was fortunate to see a much earlier basic draft many, many months back and found it was detailed very nicely with support from deck logs, action reports and memos.

As I understand it is available from his website http://www.PT-157.com/products.htm or from Amazon. Both the standard editions and the deluxe edition of ‘First-Up: Chronicles of the PT-157 (July-August 1943)’.

I'm sure with a slight twist to his arm he will volunteer some more detail about the book.

Good luck on the book Bridge,

Dick . . .


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Frank J Andruss Sr

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of Frank J Andruss Sr   Send Email To Frank J Andruss Sr Posted on: Mar 30, 2012 - 11:45am
I had the pleasure of reading Bridge's book over the past few days. It is very well researched book, that gives the reader an insight into PT-157 and her nightly actions. The book is loaded with copies of action reports, and will keep you busy reading them, along with a small amount of black and white photo's. There is much information in this book on the Skipper of PT-157, "Bud Liebenow", and over-all I found the book enjoyable. I think my only complaint would be, not enough photographs. I enjoy photographs, which as you know tell the story better then just plain text. if you enjoy a real inside look into PT-157, and action reports from Ron 9, you will like this. For the price you can't go wrong, the book will be a nice addition to your PT BOAT LIBRARY...................


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Hadly

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message   Posted on: Mar 30, 2012 - 5:10pm
Bridge, congrats . . . I looked at the preview shown on Amazon. It looked good so I bought one. Good luck.
SH


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TheBridge

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of TheBridge  Posted on: Mar 30, 2012 - 7:29pm
Thanks for the comments. I'm still catching up with my 'post-production' work and haven't yet posted anything about the book so my apologies for my delay.

In the course of building the model of the PT-157 (documented in the book PT-157: A Scale Model Builder's Notebook) I came in contact with the two remaining crewman of the 157, skipper William 'Bud' Liebenow and torpedo man Welford West. While I kept asking about the 157's details I needed to help complete the model, I kept hearing stories of some missions and patrols from both of the guys. I was so focused on the model, I damn near ignored the stories. But afterwards, my family and PT friends encouraged me to go back and pick up the details, so I did. The result is First-Up: Chronicles of the PT-157

Here is the description of First-Up as used on Amazon..

You’ll see how rescuing Lt. J.F. Kennedy and his 109 crew was only one night among many for the PT-157 in the summer of 1943. In July 1943 the PT boats of RON-9 were the first PTs, that is ‘First-Up’, to advance to Rendova Harbor in the Solomon Islands. From here they established a base from which to attack Japanese destroyers. Following Rendova, the PT-157 moved next to Lever Harbor on 'The Slot' side of New Georgia Island to begin the even more difficult task of attacking the well protected Japanese barges. read about the challenges when the 'push' of the Japanese meets the 'shove' of the U.S. PT fleet. Stand of the 157's deck and ride with Skipper Liebenow, torpdeoman West and the crew during the push-and-shove patrols and missions of this critical period. Included in this chronology are the eyewitness recounting of key actions from these last of the PT-157's crewman, pages from the boat's log book, historical photos, MTB Commander’s Daily Action Reports and location maps of the patrols and missions of the PT-157.

I used a few general PT photos however I tired to restrict myself to photos of the 157, its crew or another applicable location photos only. I also feel other books such as those by Victor Chun, Frank Andruss, T. Garth Connelly and many have done such a great jobs with their photos of PTs in their excellent productions.

First-Up is about one boat, one crew at the front lines during the hotly contested summer of 1943. What it was like to be there. It is their story on these pages. It is the events as they occurred. And the documentation trail that follows their exploits. It's as if there story has now been caught in a bottle for all us to appreciate what they went through and what they did.


Note: I produced two versions of the book. Both versions are nearly identical, with about 200-pages, however the 'deluxe version' is printed on slightly higher grade paper and a few of the images (the PT-157 model and Dick Washichek's drawings of the 157) are in color. What is great is that standard edition is only $14.95! The deluxe is $29.00. I really wanted to make an affordable book, and I am very pleased to have done so.

Autographed editions (by the two remaining PT-157 crewman and author) can be purchased on the website:
www.PT-157.com

or for non-autographed editions you can go to Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Bridgeman+Carney+%2B+First-Up

I am also hoping to get these for sale on PTBOATS in the near future.

I hope you have the opportunity to enjoy First-Up.

Bridge


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Jeff D

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of Jeff D   Send Email To Jeff D Posted on: Mar 30, 2012 - 9:28pm
Nice work Bridge. It's good to be able to read about their experiences and have them recorded for history.



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Will Day

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of Will Day   Send Email To Will Day Posted on: Mar 30, 2012 - 11:18pm
What Jeff said....

Will

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victorkchun

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message   Posted on: Mar 31, 2012 - 8:49am
Since all of us like Bridge's latest book, it will be nice if all of you write a good book review
for Amazon.com. This will spread the words around.
Victor

Victor K Chun

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victorkchun

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message   Posted on: Mar 31, 2012 - 9:02am
Frank is right about more pictures, even not of PT 157, for your book as I also mentioned to
you before. Most readers like nice large clear photos that show PT boat in different
situations, combat or otherwise. I meant never published photos of course. However,
I hate books that used 80% of their pictures from my book. Lots of luck.
Victor

Victor K Chun

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TheBridge

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of TheBridge  Posted on: Mar 31, 2012 - 7:08pm
Thanks for your comments. I know you suggested during the development of this book to add more photos. I was, however, focused on a specific time frame and place and I had hoped to find new photos at NARA (National Archives) that met this criteria but there was not much. I did find much sharper photos of two shots we have seen before including the cover photo. The cover photo is not the exact same photo we have seen posted on internet. The same is true of the photo of the 157 crew standing across the deck. Although they look similar to the versions seen on the internet and possibly other books, these two photos, which I used in 'First-Up', were from the USMC archive at NARA and both photos have incredible clarity as they was shot on a 4 x 5 film format. I know that's not much to show for effort and expense I put into that part of the research but it is what it is.

I also agree with Victor's point that to reprint PT photos previously seen in other publications is not bringing new material to light. And in my case using seen-before materials would be distracting to the crew's story of the 157. I also felt it was important to substantiate and develop the timeline of the 157 through actual documents. Our intrepid crewman can remember many events clearly although the sequence of which events followed other events is fuzzy to them. They're in their 90s now so I'm certainly grateful for what we got. It then became my task to line up the sequence of the days and it took documentation from the period to string this all together. This may sound a bit like an archeological dig to some, however, to others I hope it be an example of how one can, some 70-years later, track a specific boat and crew and follow their path.

Certainly other boats had similar experiences as the 157 and I hope the families, the descendants of the crews and us armchair historians get the gist of what it was like at the front by what happened. That's the purpose of First-Up to tell the story of just one PT through the eyes of a couple of guys who were there.


Bridge


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Black Ops

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message   Posted on: Apr 1, 2012 - 9:39am
Looking forward in reading the book. Good Luck with the book.


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