According to the book description of War in Boats: My WWII Submarine Battles, “Submarine duty in World War II took the lives of more than twenty percent of U.S. submariners. As a young ensign, William J. Ruhe kept a journal on eight action-filled patrols in the South Pacific. His colorful memoir has earned a place with the best naval fiction, among such books as Run Silent, Run Deep and The Hunt for Red October.”

The Midwest Book Review said of War in Boats: My WWII Submarine Battles, “In 1942, fresh from the U. S. Naval Academy, young ensign Bill Ruhe went to war in the Pacific in submarines, or "boats" as they were called by the men who sailed them. War In The Boats: My WWII Submarine Battles grew out of a journal he surreptitiously kept, recording eight tense, action-filled patrols against the Japanese in the South Pacific. With the variety of his missions and types of boats he served on, Ruhe's experiences encompass those of almost every U. S. submariner in the Pacific theater. War In The Boats chronicles not only the progress of the war, but also the effect submarine warfare had on a tightly knit group of men. While War In The Boats is one of the most detailed descriptions of factual naval warfare, the combat actions never overshadow the impact they had on the combatants themselves. War In The Boats is a unique "window in time" into one of the fiercely fought, critically important, yet largely unknown, aspects of war in the Pacific.”

According to the book description of Slow Dance to Pearl Harbor: A Tin Can Ensign in Prewar America, “Evoking Mister Roberts, The Winds of War, and The Caine Muntiny--except for the fact that it is a true story--Slow Dance to Pearl Harbor offers a fascinating, colorful description of life as it really was in an innocent and naive America before the first bombs fell. Ruhe is the author of War in the Boats.”