Tales From a Tin Can

“What was life like on a destroyer during World War II? Find out by reading Michael Keith Olson’s superb telling of tales of the war in the Pacific as seen from the deck of a very luck ‘tin can”… The son of a former Dale crewman, Olson interviewed 44 veterans and delved deeply into official documents to give this book the air of authenticity that puts the reader in the heart of the action.

“Tales from a Tin Can is the first oral history of one combat ship’s adventures, sometimes comic, sometimes mundane, sometimes heart wrenching, over the entire course of America’s involvement in the Pacific. An impressive accomplishment and highly recommended.”
WWII History

“This fascinating book captures not only the furious clashes with the Japanese but also the humdrum days in-between and the heart-stopping encounters with typhoons that could be as lethal as any engagement with the enemy. Anyone interested in stories from World War II will find this well-illustrated account of the naval campaign in the Pacific fascinating.”
Register –Pajaronian


Looking up from his newspaper from where he sat on the deck of the destroyer USS Dale, Harold Reichert could see the pilot plain as day--the leather helmet with chin strap, the goggles, and then the red rising sun painted on the planes fuselage. "I saw the torpedo drop and watched as it ran up on the old Utah." It was daybreak at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the beginning of the war, and the Dale was there; she would serve until the end, when the atomic bombs were dropped and Japan surrendered.


In the words of those who manned her, the Dales war comes vividly to life in this first oral history of a combat ship from Pearl Harbor to Tokyo Bay. From carrier raids on Midway, Guadalcanal, and the Solomons to the bombarding of Saipan and Guam in the capture of the Marianas, from the Aleutians in the far north to strikes on Tokyo and Kobe, Tales from a Tin Can recreates the action aboard the Dale, and conveys as never before the true grit of wartime on a destroyer.