The Barque of Saviors
Subtitle: Eagle's Passage from the Nazi Navy to the U.S. Coast Guard
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Published: November 16, 2001
Language: eng
Number of pages: 288
ISBN-13: 9780395983676
First sentence: Eagle shoulders large seas, her sails white against a bruise of clouds.
Description: "This sea story of fathomless evil and moral redemption begins in 1936 in Hamburg, Germany. There, in the presence of Adolf Hitler and thousands of cheering Nazis, a splendid three-masted sailing ship was christened Horst Wessel. Throughout World War II, the barque was a training ship for naval officers. After Germany's defeat, it was taken over by the U.S. Coast Guard. The Americans found the crew terrified and half starved; they brought the young Germans, so recently their mortal enemies, back to life. The Germans, in return, taught the American sailors the ways of the beautiful square-rigged ship, newly rechristened Eagle. In time, Eagle would become the Coast Guard's elite school ship - the barque of saviors."--Jacket.