Student, Sailor, Skipper, Survivor: How WWII Transformed the Lives of Ordinary Americans

by Julia Gimbel

Student, Sailor, Skipper, Survivor goes beyond the often-told battle stories to describe the life experiences shared by millions of Americans serving during WWII. Using her late father's journal as the framework, researcher and author Julia Gimbel fleshes out what it was like to go through accelerated officer training, set sail, and live life at sea during the tumultuous war years. Step into the shoes of one sailor and, by extension, millions more to catch a whiff of the American spirit and determination of WWII. Learn how young Americans navigated military life and connected with their new brothers over the simple pleasure of a meal or a smoke, all while keeping their eye on the goal of returning home to resume the life they put on hold.

330 pages, Paperback

Published March 3, 2020

Reviews

[Military Writers Society of America (MWSA)]

MWSA Review

Author Julia Gimbel took her father's draft, an unpublished memoir, and expanded on it to give us her interesting book Student, Sailor, Skipper, Survivor. Her father, Robert T. McCurdy, was in college when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, and like so many of his peers volunteered to join the military to help his country win the war. As a college student, he had the opportunity to enlist as an officer in the Navy. He took advantage of that and never regretted his choice. McCurdy served on a landing craft tank (LCT) in the Pacific, transporting men and equipment on and off the islands. Many of the men he returned to the larger ships were injured. McCurdy survived the war, and after a while, he began to jot down his memories of the war years. While author Gimbel's discovery of her father's memoir and war years correspondence served as the inspiration to write this book, once she got started, she realized she needed to expand her research. She researched military archives and talked to more World War Two survivors. This book is not about major military victories or the feats of heroes. Rather it takes a look at the common sailor and what life was like so far from home and so close to death. It's a good book that I recommend.

Review by Bob Doerr (May 2020)

[Pamela Liljeberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Using her father’s journals, author Julia Gimbel creates a window into the culture, history, and personal lives of those fighting and impacted by World War II. The reader is taken into the daily routine of her father Robert McCurdy from his start in college, to entering the Navy, where he spent three years.

Gimble supplements McCurdy’s journal entries with historical facts based on solid research. Personal photos and artifacts, as well as historical findings create a book that places the wider war into a personal context. By providing background about Higgins boats, how men offset down time with times of work and battle, as well as segregation in the military, Gimbel shows how life was for her dad and many other sailors and military personnel.

Gimbel’s compilation of historical fact with personal reflections and observations provides a unique basis for this revealing account of World War II and is an enjoyable book for anyone interested in how the war impacted one man and continues to affect future generations.

[David Devine · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good book that delves into the life of a young Navy officer in WWII on a small vessel. Julia digs into the life of her father from his time in college thru the accelerated "V" programs that turned him into an Ensign in the US Navy. She used her father's journal, written long after the war, to follow her father's journey across the Pacific to the war. Julia describes what it is like as one of two officers on the LCT, working long hours, days on end to help keep the troops supplied and transport the wounded to larger ships to be transported back to a hospital. In addition to her father, she includes stories of several other veterans that served in the Pacific as well as digging to various aspects of the war to include the racial segregation issue many African-Americans faced as they fought for their country.

[Deborah Hufford · Rating 5 out of 5]

Student, Sailor, Skipper, Survivor is a poignant account of a daughter honoring her father, a World War II Navy officer, and a beautiful tribute to all WWII veterans. Many of us have family members who fought in WWII. The author was lucky enough to have her father's copious and erudite accounts of his war experience to serve as the foundation for this book. But, the author expands the book artfully into something for all of us, providing background information, photographs, and fascinating anecdotes that make her father's experience–and that of our own family veterans of WWII–come alive. A truly unique and wonderful book.

[Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is the perfect marriage of factual research, a first-hand account of war, and a daughter’s discovery of a side of her late father she’d never known. Gimbel takes us into the day-to-day of war, the things many of us may never have considered: the role of tobacco and liquor, the importance (and logistics) of mail, the “care and feeding” of the young (mostly) men in harm’s way, among others. She goes beyond the history textbook and magazine articles to remind us all of the “regular people” who were changed by their involvement in war. A perfect companion to any study of World War II.

[April Schwanke Kaufman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this to be an excellent source of information, flavored with the person words of the author's father, as well as other contributors who found themselves involved with the second world war.