Eight Bells — originally titled Eight Bells and All’s Well — is on of many memoirs about Daniel V. Gallery’s time spent in the U.S. Navy.
Gallery saw action in World War II, and led an effort to capture the U-505, a German submarine. This was a notable achievement, because the U-505 contained an Enigma code machine and code books that let codebreakers listen in on encoded German transmissions. There was a catch, however: the U-505‘s capture had to remain a secret. Gallery was influential in convincing his crews to keep their mouths shut.
Gallery was a vocal advocate of what became known as the “Revolt of the Admirals.” He published several articles critical of Secretary of Defense Louis A. Johnson’s plan to downsize the U.S. military by all but getting rid of the Navy and rolling the Marine Corps into the Army. For this, Gallery was almost court martialed.
The cover art we’re showing here is very crooked. That’s because the book was bound crookedly, which caused the cover images to be slanted.
The cover art is by Bob Jones. This is not any of the Bob Joneses associated with Bob Jones University — the Bob Jones we’re talking about did art for MAD Magazine, as well as working as a fill-in artist for Warner Bros. cartoons. He also designed the iconic Exxon tiger.
