All Came Home: A World War II story told through the letters of Boat Group Commander, Joseph B. McDevitt

by Paul K. McDevitt, William O. Miller (Foreword by)

Overview

"All Came Home" is a true story of junior reserve officer Joe McDevitt during WWII, as told through letters mailed home to his family.

This is a quintessential American story about a youngster of German and Irish ancestry striving to achieve the American dream. Then comes WWII, and Joe postpones his driving personal ambition in order to enlist in the Navy.

He joins the Pacific Amphibious Forces where men wage war on the open water in small boats. Could the Navy really make a warrior out of him... someone who thinks of nothing else but the sea and the war?

A romance flourishes, and, like many of his peers, Joe must choose: marry now, and leave a young war bride behind, or wait to wed his true love when, and if, he returns?

At war, he endures one bloody assault after another: ground-shaking bombardments, thundering artillery and mortar barrages, and the conviction that chance alone determines who lives and who dies.

One way or another, all came home...

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780986341007
Publisher:	Killian Publishing
Publication date:	05/01/2015
Pages:	350
Product dimensions:	7.80(w) x 9.90(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Paul McDevitt is a retired professor emeritus who enjoyed research and writing during thirty-one years of university service. He is also the second son of a Navy "lifer" who began his career as a junior reserve deck officer in World War II and finished as the Navy's top uniformed lawyer.

One of Paul's memorable reads from high school was Kenneth Dodson's naval classic "Away All Boats," a riveting story-and later a movie-about American amphibious forces. At that time Paul was unaware that his own father had served on an attack transport in the Pacific during the war.

Imagine his dismay when, in 2009, he opened a musty old box, read the letters that his Dad wrote home from the Pacific, and learned that Joe McDevitt was "Boats," the Boat Group Commander aboard the U.S.S. Leon APA 48! Those letters provide the story line for this book about World War II, the U.S.S. Leon, and the making of an American hero.