Wilson, Sloan Pacific Interlude

A grim World War 2 novel set in the South Pacific in 1944 and 1945 aboard a small gas tanker running shuttle and convoy duties for the U.S. Army. The novel is the third in a series (see Wilson’s earlier A Voyage to Somewhere (1946) and Ice Brothers (1979), each clearly autobiographical in nature, by an author who himself had commanded a similar gas tanker in the South Pacific during the war. Wilson’s descriptions of tanker life are seen through the eyes of protagonist Syl Grant, the tanker’s twenty five year old Coast Guard captain. Grant’s difficulty with command is a major theme of the novel, and though he feels a great sense of responsibility for his unruly and often undisciplined officers and crew, he clearly never particularly likes most of them. Yet he does his duty by them and, by the novel’s conclusion, comes to respect his crew. An interesting subplot involves the unsuccessful integration of a young African-American able bodied seaman into the tanker’s crew. Harassment — verbal, physical and psychological — eventually drive the hapless young man into going absent without leave from the ship, an act that the tanker’s compassionate captain is unable to prevent.