Tales from a Tin Can; The USS Dale from Pearl Harbor to Tokyo Bay
St. Paul, MN: Zenith Press, 2007. Presumed First Edition, First printing. Hardcover. 336 pages. List of Maps. Illustrations. Appendices: The Crew. USS Dale World War II Battle Stars, Chronology: November 1941 to October 1945, and Task Force Assignments. Notes. Glossary of U.S. Navy Abbreviations, Acronyms, and Slang. Bibliography. Index. This book had gotten wet and there is mildew residue on DJ (outside and inside), covers, and some pages. Some page rippling. A completely readable copy, but far from a showpiece. Olson's Tales from a Tin Can: The U.S.S. Dale from Pearl Harbor to Tokyo Bay, is an homage to his father, Robert "Pat" Olson, who served on the U.S.S. Dale for three years following the attack on Pearl Harbor. In researching the project, Olson intertwined material gleaned from a series of oral histories produced by crew members with information from the ship's log and other data he considered likely to give readers an accurate historical perspective. A reviewer for Publishers Weekly called Olson's effort "an impressive accomplishment, bringing vividly to life the actions of a single warship that fought across half the world." Booklist contributor Roland Green considered the book "a sound addition to World War II naval literature." When asked what first got him interested in writing, Olson told CA: "The desire to entertain and inform, which I saw, at a very early age, as a way of earning one's way in the world." Olson cited authors Ernest Hemingway and Robert A. Heinlein, NBC, and "all things ancient China," as influences on his work. He described his writing process as "The War of the Worlds: three a.m. to seven a.m." More