Naval deck logs require young officers to record mundane details of a ship's condition every few hours. According to a U.S. Navy tradition, the New Year's midwatch log--covering midnight to early morning of January 1--can be entered as poetry. Each chapter of this first book-length examination of midwatch poems presents verses written 1941-1946 aboard a ship engaged in combat during World War II, including celebrated warships like the USS
Enterprise
and nameless vessels like
PC 1264
. Historical overviews of the ships' operations, along with biographical sketches of the author(s), relate each poem to its moment in history.