Ford Island barracks, 2300 Hours, Sunday, 7 December 1941:...in a state of delirium, cold and clammy from shock, I mumble into my pillow: "I'll get a Jap battlewagon if it's the last thing..."

Midway Battle, June 5, 1942: The big one, Admiral Yamamoto's flagship...world's largest, most fearsome dreadnaught...the mighty Yamato, gets away unscathed. That's IT! Now IT has a name...IT replaces my imagined, nameless, hulk...the battleship I swore to get."

CASU 24, Wildwood, NJ, September 1944: I hook up with the Navy's finest dive bomber pilot, Lt. Hugh Grubiss, as a CAC in the SB2C Hell-Diver.

Sunday, 7 April 1945: Lt. Grubiss pushes over into our dive on the zig-zagging Yamato. I yell, "Squirm, you _ _ _, that's more than the Arizona could do." Seconds later..."

When Jim Buchanan, nicknamed "Buck" while serving in the U.S. Navy, retired from the Navy in July of 1962, his wife, Cleo, son Douglas and daughter Judy, ages 13 and 5, respectively, settled in Marion, Iowa. His naval experience in electronics, reviewed by the owner of Collins Radio Company, Mr. Arthur Collins, himself a non-degreed Electrical Engineer (EE), hired him as an EE, specifically as a technical writer.

Twenty-three years later, Jim retired from Collins Radio Company and moved to Prescott Valley, Arizona, into a home that they built with the advice and assistance of Cleo's brother, Ron Michael (a construction contractor).

As he grew older (starting with the early seventies), he started displaying signs of Alzheimer's disease. Given the advice by his doctor to do so, he started writing short stories; all of which led to the writing of a full length novel entitled, Back of Beyond, and this, Hell-Diver's Vengeance, his wartime autobiography.

The writing experiment seems to have arrested the disease at a non-influencing level; and with medication, the results of the present tests conducted by Jim's doctor indicate that his memory has greatly improved.