This meticulously researched and thoroughly well-written book adds much to the literature of the WWII generation. The four menGordon Cox, Tim McCoy, Bob Palmer, and Chuck Vervalinall survived growing up in the Depression. Joining the navy, they all survived the loss of the submarine Grenadier and two and a half years as POWs in Japanese hands. (Their experiences in the camps are told with great balance, if sometimes horrific detail.) Returning home, they lived out somewhat checkered lives, with as many failures as successesdivorces, financial reversals, and alienated or dead children among the latter. The author is frank about their personal quirks, tooall had drinking problems at one time or anotherand pays tribute to the women whose support frequently stood between them and disaster. This is the greatest generation, but with warts, wives, wobbling, and all. --Roland Green