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The Gun Club: U.S.S. Duncan at Cape Esperance
The U.S. Navy’s first planned battle of WWII is told through the extraordinary, little-known story of USS DUNCAN, the first Allied warship to penetrate a Japanese battle-line. From their first encounter with their celebrated captain and tyrannical executive officer to a deadly night afloat in shark-infested waters to a homecoming turned into a PR campaign, THE GUN CLUB is a vivid day-to-day account of life on a warship, told largely in the words of the survivors, and is one of the most detailed and compelling accounts of a war cruise ever written.
- GenresHistory
366 pages, Paperback
Published October 2, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 8, 2026
3 stars. The Gun Club: U.S.S. Duncan at Cape Esperance deserves the highest marks for Robert Fowler’s impressive research and reconstruction of the destroyer USS Duncan’s entire history, including the Battle of Cape Esperance—north of Guadalcanal, during the Solomon Islands campaign in the southwest Pacific theater in World War II—and for Fowler’s captivating writing, making this book a real page-turner. Unfortunately, those high marks are offset by very poor editing.
Fowler picked through hundreds of pages (or more) of logbooks, written reports, personal letters, and military archives and combined his findings with dozens of interviews to produce a thorough, believable, consistent account. This is doubly impressive considering the fog of war, truth-shading, and outright lying—to protect their own and others’ careers and reputations—that corrupted the participants’ reports of operations and battles. Furthermore, the author is not even a book author, historian, or academic by trade, but rather a film and theater producer and writer—making Fowler’s work even more impressive.
I read somewhere that this book was self-published. Perhaps that helps to explain—but does not excuse—the terrible editing or complete lack of editing. The formatting of footnotes, source notes, and back matter was clunky. Ranks of officers and rates of enlisted men were often inconsistent. The rank abbreviations do not match any modern or historical style standards. There were grammar errors, missing words, punctuation errors, and typography errors. Often, distances, directions, and coordinates did not make logical sense or could not be understood correctly because they were not presented in a readable manner. The entire book is left-justified, not fully justified, leaving the right margin ragged and producing an overall sloppy appearance. Errors in originals were not corrected or explained. Here is just a sampling of some noteworthy and jarring errors:
●For mixed fractions, Fowler used a bizarre format: Instead of 4½, he set the 1/2 in superscript, so the number looked like 4 to the ½ power. This was not an isolated error. (Goodreads doesn’t allow superscript formatting.)
●At one point, Fowler writes, “The slender new moon rose low in the west.” Soon after that, the moon set. But a moon, a few days after new moon, that appears low in the west at sunset does not rise in the west; both the sun and the moon always rise in the east and set in the west.
●Compass direction 075° is described as east-southeast. Actually, 075° is west-northwest.
●New Caledonia is equated with the modern country of Vanuatu. In reality, they are neighbors, but New Caledonia is a French overseas territory and has been since the mid-nineteenth century. Neither of the two entities has ever been a part of the other.
Again, The Gun Club had excellent content and entertaining writing. Even the sections not involving combat or much action, which a reader might expect to be somewhat boring, closely held my interest. I don’t know if Mr. Fowler is still alive. If has written any other books, I’ll be sure to read them, but I hope that he hired an editor!
Fowler picked through hundreds of pages (or more) of logbooks, written reports, personal letters, and military archives and combined his findings with dozens of interviews to produce a thorough, believable, consistent account. This is doubly impressive considering the fog of war, truth-shading, and outright lying—to protect their own and others’ careers and reputations—that corrupted the participants’ reports of operations and battles. Furthermore, the author is not even a book author, historian, or academic by trade, but rather a film and theater producer and writer—making Fowler’s work even more impressive.
I read somewhere that this book was self-published. Perhaps that helps to explain—but does not excuse—the terrible editing or complete lack of editing. The formatting of footnotes, source notes, and back matter was clunky. Ranks of officers and rates of enlisted men were often inconsistent. The rank abbreviations do not match any modern or historical style standards. There were grammar errors, missing words, punctuation errors, and typography errors. Often, distances, directions, and coordinates did not make logical sense or could not be understood correctly because they were not presented in a readable manner. The entire book is left-justified, not fully justified, leaving the right margin ragged and producing an overall sloppy appearance. Errors in originals were not corrected or explained. Here is just a sampling of some noteworthy and jarring errors:
●For mixed fractions, Fowler used a bizarre format: Instead of 4½, he set the 1/2 in superscript, so the number looked like 4 to the ½ power. This was not an isolated error. (Goodreads doesn’t allow superscript formatting.)
●At one point, Fowler writes, “The slender new moon rose low in the west.” Soon after that, the moon set. But a moon, a few days after new moon, that appears low in the west at sunset does not rise in the west; both the sun and the moon always rise in the east and set in the west.
●Compass direction 075° is described as east-southeast. Actually, 075° is west-northwest.
●New Caledonia is equated with the modern country of Vanuatu. In reality, they are neighbors, but New Caledonia is a French overseas territory and has been since the mid-nineteenth century. Neither of the two entities has ever been a part of the other.
Again, The Gun Club had excellent content and entertaining writing. Even the sections not involving combat or much action, which a reader might expect to be somewhat boring, closely held my interest. I don’t know if Mr. Fowler is still alive. If has written any other books, I’ll be sure to read them, but I hope that he hired an editor!
January 29, 2018
If you are looking for an action-packed book that is difficult to put down, The Gun Club: U.S.S. Duncan at Cape Esperance by Robert Fowler is the book.
This is an exciting, play-by-play story of the battle and the struggle for survival by all the men aboard the U.S.S. Duncan. You will read about some very dramatic things.
Fowler, the author and son of the main character, tells his readers about all the trials and tribulations the crew went through and what happened to many of them after the fact.
If you like stories of shark attacks, it is in here. If you like to read about heroism, it is in here.
The story is surprisingly clean and, for the most part, Christian Friendly.
We give it five stars on our scale of zero to five stars. It is thrilling, entertaining, and informative. The Gun Club is very well-written and researched in depth.
For our blog readers, there is no graphic sex, but there is some innuendo. The Lord’s Name is used in vain twice during the story and those are direct quotes.
We were sent a complimentary copy of this book. We are under no obligation to write any review, positive or negative.
We are disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255.
This is an exciting, play-by-play story of the battle and the struggle for survival by all the men aboard the U.S.S. Duncan. You will read about some very dramatic things.
Fowler, the author and son of the main character, tells his readers about all the trials and tribulations the crew went through and what happened to many of them after the fact.
If you like stories of shark attacks, it is in here. If you like to read about heroism, it is in here.
The story is surprisingly clean and, for the most part, Christian Friendly.
We give it five stars on our scale of zero to five stars. It is thrilling, entertaining, and informative. The Gun Club is very well-written and researched in depth.
For our blog readers, there is no graphic sex, but there is some innuendo. The Lord’s Name is used in vain twice during the story and those are direct quotes.
We were sent a complimentary copy of this book. We are under no obligation to write any review, positive or negative.
We are disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews