The galloping ghost : the extraordinary life of submarine captain Eugene Fluckev

As the skipper of the submarine USS Barb during World War II, Eugene Fluckey did the unthinkable.

He attacked enemy convoys while making breathless escapes from closing destroyers.

He launched what he called "ballistic" missiles at Japanese factories from his underseas boat.

He sent a landing party ashore in Japan to blow up a train - the only landing on Japan by U.S. military forces during World War II. And he never lost a shipmate while he was in command.

Fluckey's skill and courage earned him four Navy Crosses, a Presidential Unit Citation and the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest military award.

Until his death in May 2006, he was the most decorated living American. [Carl-I read that somewhere but don't know if it held true.

Can you confirm?] Carl Lavo has written the remarkable story of the "Galloping Ghost of the Chinese Coast" - the captain who sank more enemy tonnage than any other submarine skipper during the Pacific War.

Fluckey was involved in the development of the submarine-launched Regulus missile system and the Polaris and Trident systems that today are the bulwark of the Navy's deep seas nuclear deterrent. He was Director of Naval Intelligence, Commander of the Pacific submarine fleet, and Commander of NATO's Iberian operations at the height of the Cold War.

Drawing on Admiral Fluckey's personal documents, official Naval records, interviews with Fluckey, his family and surviving shipmates, and the cooperation of the admiral's contemporaries, "The Galloping Ghost" recounts the life and career of one of the Navy's most illustrious heroes - a man whose leadership techniques and buoyant personality are personified in his oft-quoted philosophy: "We don't have problems, just solutions."