What inspired you to compile nearly five dozen first-person accounts from diesel submariners into Submarine Stories?
The inspiration came from having done the oral histories of many submariners and wanting to share the results of those interviews with a wide audience. In addition, I learned of other first-person accounts to supplement those in the Naval Institute’s oral history collection. The real value is being able to learn of events through the words of the men who experienced them personally. What criteria did you use to select the stories that appeared on the pages of Submarine Stories? The idea was to pick memoirs that were informative and had good storytelling qualities, so that the reader can both learn and be entertained. Also I wanted to cover a broad spectrum of time in telling the history of the U.S. diesel submarine force. Commander Jerry Hendrix, formerly a Naval Institute board member, told me of a 1905 letter that President Teddy Roosevelt had written after taking a plunge in the USS Plunger. That event kicks off the book’s timeline. At the other end of the spectrum, in 2006 I visite
