<p><strong>The extraordinary first and only memoir by a survivor of the USS <em>Arizona </em></strong><strong>published in conjunction with the seventy-fifth anniversary of Pearl Harbor.</strong></p><p>An unforgettable and moving story of tragedy heroism resilience and redemption that is sure to become an enduring document of American history <em>All the Brave Men</em> is a sailor's eyewitness moment-by-moment account of the Japanese surprise attack that decimated the U.S. Pacific Fleet in Hawaii on December 7 1941 and and his inspiring return to active duty to carry on the Allied fight in the Pacific.</p><p>On December 7 1941 the <em>Arizona</em> was moored in Pearl Harbor Hawaii alongside seven other American battleships. At 7:55 a.m. the leisurely Sunday morning's serenity was broken by the drone of bomb-laden Japanese Zeros swooping from the sky. The <em>Arizona</em> was the first battleship targeted in a massive surprise attack by the Empire of Japan; 353 imperial war planes swarmed Battleship Row and neighboring Hickam Airfield in a meticulously planned assault launched to cripple America's Pacific Fleet.</p><p>Amid the terrifying chaos of explosions and incessant machine gun fire nineteen-year-old Seaman First Class Donald Stratton raced to his battle station on the <em>Arizona</em>. Barely fifteen minutes into the attack a 1760-pound armor-piercing bomb hit the ship setting off a million pounds of munitions and 180000 gallons of aviation fuel aboard. The explosion lifted the massive battleship out of the water causing the forward deck to buckle and engulfed it in an enormous fifty-foot fireball that tore through the anti-aircraft platform where Don and his team were stationed.</p><p>Burned over more than sixty-five percent of his body Don and his gunnery team miraculously escaped the inferno; using their charred hands they climbed across a seventy-foot-long rope stretched forty-five feet above flaming oil-slicked water to reach the <em>Vestal</em> moored nearby. While Don made it out alive 1177 of his crewmates perished-more than half the American casualty total of the attack.</p><p>But this remarkable story does not end here. After more than a year of grueling treatment including learning to walk again Don recovered and doggedly battled Navy bureaucracy to re-enlist. Determined to take the fight to the enemy he participated in some of the bloodiest battles of the Pacific including the invasion of New Guinea Iwo Jima and Okinawa.</p><p>Told in remarkable never-before-revealed first-person detail this powerful and uplifting memoir of war and survival resonates with the spirit heart and undaunted courage of such beloved bestsellers as<em> Unbroken</em> and <em>The Boys in the Boat.</em></p></p><P>A HarperAudio production.</P>
