This is the World War II diary of an American sailor, an ordinary seaman who, against all military regulations, recorded his impressions and daily war experiences on scraps of paper. After the war, he returned to his civilian job as a dustcart driver in Massachusetts, but achieved fame when his book was published in 1963. He donated his royalties to the building of a cathedral in India and continued in his job. In 1967 Fahey visited the cathedral in India and was greeted by a crowd of 10,000 people, and in 1970 he returned to be married there. He died in 1991, and the radiation he received when his ship visited Hiroshima immediately after the dropping of the atomic bomb is thought to have contributed to his death.