Yes, I read it; I loved it and thought he was such a good storyteller. His honesty and sincerity about his experiences were surprising. Reading it, it struck me that it was like listening to a grandfather - less formal and more personal. I think he may have left out a lot of the TDC stuff out of the sense of modesty that almost all veterans acquire with age. As Edward Beach wrote in the foreword:
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Here now we read Jim's version of how it happened, told modestly, as it has to be. Nevertheless there is enough between the lines to make it clear that the author and his TDC had an affinity seldom seen.
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And as Calvert himself says,
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The writing of memoirs, of whatever time of one's life, is an act of considerable egotism....
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But anyhow - I sound like I'm trying to change your mind about the book, but I'm not. To each his own, and I know what you're saying about certain details being left out or skimmed over. For instance, he really doesn't 'fess up to the epic accomplishment of bagging three transports with a "going away" shot at 5,000 yards! As you say, it may have been that he thought casual readers would find it boring. Or maybe he thought that, since others had already written firsthand accounts that discussed the technical stuff in more detail, his should take a different approach. Whatever the reason, I kept getting the feeling that his unspoken words were, "I did my job like everybody else; here's what it was like." And he wrote about it without second-guessing it, or overplaying it, or downplaying it, or apologizing for it, or bragging about it. I think it's a testament to his abilities that, as the youngest and least experienced officer aboard, he was given the TDC operator's job.
I came away with great respect for him. (Can you tell?
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