Quote:
Originally Posted by Shibster
I also read Blind Mans Bluff on the recommendation from a former sub guy but I hear there are some around here that dislike it...either way it had some good stories in my opinion.
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BMB dug into some stories that were never supposed to see the light of day, especially towards the end of the book. That got many pairs of underwear twisted, mine included, because The Silent Service mostly means that we don't talk about what we did. Ever.
By the time I got around to reading it, Sherry Sontag had re-written the dedications section to explain
why they wrote the book and mentioned that they were telling the stories for the people (and their families) who could never tell the truth about what they were up to or why they were away from home for so long. So, take that for what its worth. Sontag and Drew are also investigative journalists and BMB was one the early books that relied on FOIA requests to de-classify things like patrol reports. They aimed high and were given access to info that I don't think they expected to see. So, some of the underwear twisting was warranted but at the end of the day it was the government who gave them the access to the info.
Submarine stories are a dual edged sword. When you're not supposed to tell the story in the first place, it makes it easier to add some embellishment knowing that no one is going to stand up and yell "BS!!".
