Overview

"""Radioman"" is the biography of Ray Daves, a non-commissioned officer in the U.S. Navy and an eyewitness to World War II. It is based on the author's handwritten notes from a series of conversations with the 86-year-old combat veteran and gives a first-person account of the world's first battles between aircraft carriers.Ray Daves grew up on a farm. Impatient with school and with a life like his father's, he joined the Navy, where he learned to use the radio to send messages, and soon found himself, after a short stay in the Arctic, in the momentary peacefulness of Pearl Harbor.Most of America's World War II veterans were not in uniform when the war began. Daves is one of the few who was, and could also tell what was happening on the bridge of the famous carrier Yorktown before it went down and of the strange and secretive relationship between the Russian and American forces in Alaska at the time. Carol Edgemon Hipperson has discovered an inspiring American story in the life of this one man. She shares it with great skill and energy."

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9780312386948

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Reviews

Advance Praise for Radioman Radioman is a fine and informative outline of an everyday American who enlisted in the US Navy before World War Two and experienced first hand war in the Pacific. It is a useful and informative introduction to the world of enlisted men in a different era. In some ways it resembles the more practical side of the Sand Pebbles. --Newt Gingrich<p> Radioman is the best written biography of a WWII career I've ever read. This book will cement the bonds between any reader and 'the Greatest Generation'. --Mal Middlesworth, National President, Pearl Harbor Survivors Association, Inc. <p> Radioman is truly an engrossing and well-spun narrative. Hipperson retains Daves' fresh, youthful voice in a story that balances his colorful attention to detail with his broader perceptions. For those of us who have never experienced war first-hand, it is a compelling, action-filled story that moves quickly, while offering a rich array of interpretive notes and timelines for great reflection and substance. -- Marsha Rooney, Curator of History, Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture<p> From battle to battle, Radioman recounts a survivor's tale that must not be forgotten. Insights, memories, and most importantly--lessons. Never forget. --Vice Admiral John G. Morgan, Jr., United States Navy, Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Information, Plans, and Strategy<p> Fate put Ray Daves in the middle of several defining moments in United States military history. In Carol Edgemon Hipperson's book we learn of the sights, the sounds and even smells that Daves experienced during his 6 years, 4 months, 17 days, sixteen hours, and forty-two seconds in the US Navy. Memories brought tolife again in Hipperson's Radioman, --Tim Schurtter, Program Officer, Veterans History Project, Library of Congress<p> Fate placed WWII sailor Ray Daves in a rare spectrum of naval service. In addition to witnessing the attack on Pearl Harbor, he saw service on a destroyer, submarine, cruiser, aircraft carrier, including the Battles of Coral Sea and Midway, and eventually aviation duties in Alaska. Truly not the usual war experiences of a member of his generation. --Jack A. Green, Public Affairs Officer, Naval Historical Center

Advance Praise for Radioman &nbsp;&#8220; Radioman is a fine and informative outline of an everyday American who enlisted in the US Navy before World War Two and experienced first hand war in the Pacific. It is a useful and informative introduction to the world of enlisted men in a different era. In some ways it resembles the more practical side of the Sand Pebbles.&#8221;--Newt Gingrich<p>&#8220; Radioman is the best written biography of a WWII career I've ever read. This book will cement the bonds between any reader and &#8216;the Greatest Generation&#8217;.&#8221;&#8212;Mal Middlesworth, National President, Pearl Harbor Survivors Association, Inc. <p>&#8220; Radioman is truly an engrossing and well-spun narrative. Hipperson retains Daves&#8217; fresh, youthful voice in a story that balances his colorful attention to detail with his broader perceptions. For those of us who have never experienced war first-hand, it is a compelling, action-filled story that moves quickly, while

A veteran remembers his small part in great events of the Pacific War.Escaping a struggling Arkansas farm family, 16-year-old Ray Daves joined the Civilian Conservation Corps, and in 1939, after lying about his age, the Navy. During the next six years, advancing in rank at nearly every stop, he served as a radioman aboard many vessels and at a variety of land stations including Cold Bay and Kodiak, Ala., where he flew some search-and-destroy missions and observed the uneasy alliance between the Soviets and the Americans; Gulfport, Miss., where he celebrated V-J Day; and the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, then hard at work on part of the Manhattan Project. The heart of this memoir, however, is his eyewitness report of combat, first at Pearl Harbor, where he suffered a shrapnel wound, and then at the Battles of the Coral Sea and Midway, where he survived the torpedoing of the Yorktown. For most of us, these signal events have been quietly committed to history. For Daves, the odor of burnt human flesh and the image of an onrushing Japanese pilot continue to haunt. Daves's incident-filled career included brushes with fame - actor John Wayne, concert violinist Yehudi Menuhin, Admiral Chester Nimitz - and a prolonged and long-distance courtship of the girl to whom he remains married. A kind of one-man Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Daves seems to understand and appreciate the minor role he played in momentous events. He still mourns the many friends lost in battle and, at this late stage in life, has finally been persuaded to speak in detail about his war. Hipperson (The Belly Gunner, 2001, etc.) smartly stays out of the way, basing her text on extensive interviews with her subject and adopting a first-person narration that permits Daves to emerge as the authentic voice and hero - a tag he would vigorously reject - of this straightforward, unassuming story.Interesting, long-repressed tales from a humble man relieved not to have to remember anymore. (Kirkus Reviews)

Author Information

"Carol Edgemon Hipperson is the author of the award-winning military biography ""The Belly""""Gunner"","" "" which was the first book selected to the Library of Congress's list of recommended resources for students and teachers participating in the national Veterans History Project. She lives in Spokane, Washington."

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