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Library Journal said of Little
Ship, Big War: The Saga of De343 “the USS Abercrombie, which, along with many similar class ships (Destroyer
Escorts) during World War II, ran escort missions, hunted subs, rescued downed pilots, and engaged in many other dangerous
and noble endeavors. Yet the importance of these vessels has been overlooked by naval historians, who have concentrated on
the more glamorous battleships, aircraft carriers, etc. Stafford's volume chronicles the history of the Abercrombie from
its construction through its many missions and ultimately to its sale as scrap.”
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Commander Edward P. Stafford
USN (ret.) is the author of: The Big E: The Story of the USS Enterprise; Little Ship, Big War: The Saga of De343;
Subchaser; and, Far & The Deep: Submarine From U-Boat to Polaris. According to the book description of The Big E: The Story of the USS Enterprise,
“A lasting memorial to the USS Enterprise, this classic tale of the carrier that contributed more than any other single
warship to the naval victory in the Pacific has remained a favorite World War II story for more than twenty-five years. The
Big E participated in nearly every major engagement of the war against Japan and earned a total of twenty battle stars. The
Halsey-Doolittle Raid; the Battles of Midway, Santa Cruz, Guadalcanal, the Philippine Sea, and Leyte Gulf; and the invasions
of Iwo Jima and Okinawa are all faithfully recorded from the viewpoint of the men who served her so well. The author, a naval
aviator, focuses on the exploits of the famous ship's air groups, capturing the reality of their encounters and provoking
a range of emotions from readers. This
superb study of a great ship, her crew, and the action they saw has been called one of the finest pieces of naval writing
to emerge from the war. What it is like inside the cockpit of a Dauntless dive bomber as it bores in on its target or the
effort required to unstick the ship's huge rudder when damaged by a bomb are just two of the nuggets Edward Stafford mined
from the mountain of research and lengthy interviews he conducted to write the book. Literate and scholarly as well as highly
dramatic, the book will appeal to historians and the general public alike.”
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