THE MAN IN THE YELLOW RAFT

A convoy of short stories mostly about the destroyer The Boon steering a tight course in the waters of the Pacific during World War II. Cf. in her ""Triumph"" when she was a flammable target, loaded with gasoline drums. Then there was ""The Boy Stood on the Burning Deck"" with charred feet, stationed at the throttle valve below after her fuel tank was ruptured; or her return to San Francisco for a first radar installation prior to further action in ""Counterpunch""; or the young doctor she picked up adrift in the Pacific with fifty odd castaways. Etcetera, etcetera. Most of these had their initial appearance in the old S.E.P. and they are calibrated to that market assuming that nostalgia is still a predictable item in the survival kit. And of course ""heroism written between the lines"" which are kept to an economical minimum in each of the eight stories.