So Close to Home

February 29, 2016
Tougias (The Finest Hours), a writer who specializes in survival stories, and journalist O’Leary impressively render the grim early period of U.S. involvement in WWII, when U-boats wreaked havoc in American waters. During the first four months of 1942, German U-boats sank 173 vessels and lost only one. In May 1942, a U-boat torpedoed a freighter carrying Ray Downs, his wife, and two young children off the coast of New Orleans. The freighter sank too quickly for lifeboats to launch, resulting in many deaths. In the confusion, the Downs family was separated, spending a miserable 24 hours in the water before all were rescued. While not miraculous, their survival defied the odds, and they lived long and intermittently happy lives. Tougias and O’Leary alternate narrative threads between the Downses’ story and that of two U-boats roaming the Gulf of Mexico, including the one that sank the freighter. Readers irritated by the breathless recreation of the Downses’ intimate thoughts and conversation may prefer the diversions into straightforward history. Despite the book’s melodramatic nature, readers will enjoy learning about a half-forgotten incident from the early months of WWII.