Battleship NC plays a key role in thrilling new WWII novel, 'Iwo, 26 Charlie'

The Battleship North Carolina plays a cameo role in " Iwo, 26 Charlie," the latest military novel by retired Navy captain Peter Deutermann .

Deutermann has written almost a full shelf of yarns since retiring to a farm in North Carolina's Rockingham County, most of them set in World War II. "Charlie," however, is a standout. 

His protagonist, Georgia boy Lee Bishop, is a Navy lieutenant, a gunnery officer on the old-line battleship USS Nevada. When we meet him, after a brief prologue, he's in the Nevada's plot room as the battlewagon steers into the Battle of Surigao Strait, the last battleship-to-battleship action in history. Nevada had been sunk at Pearl Harbor but was raised and back in action by 1944; many Navy men saw the battle as Pearl Harbor's revenge.

In the age of aircraft carriers, however, old "dragons" like Nevada have a new role: as floating batteries pounding Japanese-occupied islands to help the Marines on the ground.

Soon the ship is on station off a volcanic rock called Iwo Jima. It seems so small, Bishop thinks, barely worth bothering about.

Iwo, however, has three air fields; the Allies want them, the better to bomb the Japanese home islands.

Also, in the eyes of the Japanese, this rock is part of the sacred Japanese homeland, which the filthy Yanks must not contaminate. Some 20,000 Japanese soldiers are entrenched on Iwo Jima in a maze of caves and tunnels. Their general has told them that they will die on the island, and that their sacred duty to the Emperor is to kill 10 Americans before they fall.

The result is what historian John Dover called "war without mercy." In all, 100,000 U.S. Marines landed on Iwo Jima; 7,000 were killed and more than 20,000 wounded. That's why there's a monument to the flag raising in Washington, D.C.

Bishop's job is to work with Marine liaison officers on Iwo Jima, who radio in coordinates for the battleships' and cruisers' guns to target. Soon, however, casualty rates are so severe that few trained officers are left. Bishop volunteers to go ashore and call in the artillery himself.

He soon finds himself in the thick of things with Marine characters like Goon, Twitch and Monster: part "Animal House" frat boys, part Marvel superheroes and, above all, superb warriors. Their mettle is tested on sectors known as The Meat Grinder and the slopes of the active volcano Mount Suribachi.

Readers who like Tom Clancy's books will enjoy Deutermann's brisk pacing, sharp characterization and devotion to the nuts and bolts of warfare. Fans of the Battleship North Carolina memorial, moored on across the Cape Fear River from Wilmington since 1961, will get a good idea about what life aboard "the Showboat" was like in combat.

North Carolina, by the way, is one of the battleships that Bishop relies on for covering fire. Its radio call sign at Iwo? "Armageddon."

"26, Iwo Charlie" reflects deep research, serves up a healing dose of humor but never loses sight of the horrors the Marines faced and overcame.

This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: Battleship N.C. is in WWII novel 'Iwo, 26 Charlie' by Peter Deutermann