J.T. McDaniel Official Website

With the publication of Bacalao in July 2004, J.T. McDaniel solidly established himself as one of the best maritime authors in recent years. Critic Barbara Buhrer called Bacalao "...the best World War II submarine novel since Edward L. Beach's Run Silent, Run Deep," and predicted the book would become "...a classic of submarine [literature]." Best selling author Homer Hickam (October Sky, The Keeper's Son), calls Bacalao "...an impressive and exciting novel," and declares McDaniel "...a terrific writer who has created a classic of wartime adventure."

Meanwhile, former submariners have hailed the new novel as "the most technically accurate submarine story ever." Perhaps not surprising, as McDaniel is also the creator and webmaster of FleetSubmarine.com, and an internationally recognized authority on the American fleet type submarine.

McDaniel's first novel, With Honour in Battle, was more speculative. Set aboard an experimental U-boat in the final months of World War II, With Honour in Battle was a critically acclaimed exploration of the officers and men of U‑2317. "They knew the war was lost," McDaniel said, "but they still continued to fight. Their sense of duty kept them at it, but didn't keep them from wondering if it was all a waste. Was what they were doing really useful? Or were they just sinking ships and, in the process, killing other sailors to no good purpose?

"The truth is, any war involves a certain moral dilemma. Most soldiers and sailors aren't really fighting for a grand cause. They're fighting to preserve their own lives, and to keep the enemy away from their families. The military is perhaps the only career where you train for years in the hope that you'll never have to put your training to practical use. No sane man really wants to kill anyone, but you do it because your government, your leaders, tell you it's important. Most military training is intended to teach the soldier how to overcome his natural revulsion at taking another human life long enough to carry out his mission."

In fact, McDaniel received most of his formal training as a writer courtesy of the United States Army. He enlisted in 1967, went through basic training at Fort Knox, and was then sent to Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana to attend the Defense Information School. The ten-week course at DINFOS was writing intensive, with nearly as many classroom hours in Applied Journalism as a student receives in a four-year college journalism course.

"Newspaper journalism, which was the emphasis in that school, is a wonderful background for a novelist," McDaniel says. "You learn to structure your stories. You learn what's important, what will capture the reader's attention. The only real negative is that it also trains you to keep everything short. Sometimes too short. I keep starting novels and ending up with lengthy short stories.

"Still, any formal training helps. Hemingway was a newspaper reporter, remember. So was Ian Fleming. And, if you learn nothing else, working on a newspaper teaches you how to spell. I did my stint as a reporter and editor in the pre-computer era. The only spell checkers we had were the ones in our heads."

McDaniel started writing when he was barely in his teens, pounding out his first "novel" on his mother's old Royal manual. "It wasn't very good," he remembers. "The thing was a spy story, with some truly awful love scenes, and Hitler's illegitimate kid as the villain. I'd been reading Ian Fleming, and that was the result. Fortunately, no one was dumb enough to publish it."

Despite serving in the Army in Viet Nam in 1968-69, McDaniel now writes primarily naval fiction. Both of his published novels have been set aboard submarines. He is also General Editor for the American Submarine War Patrol Report series, now being published by Riverdale Books. "General Editor means chief typist, mostly," he says. "The reports are on microfiche and I spend a lot of time copying them into the computer to be set up in type. The editing is mostly fixing a few spelling errors and adding footnotes."

He adds, "I think I might have made a good submariner. The main reason I joined the Army instead of the Navy was a combination of the fact that the Army guaranteed you'd attend the school of your choice, and the fact that I was a lousy swimmer. Back then I was 6' 4" and weighed about 160 pounds. I didn't float.

"But I'd been fascinated by subs ever since our grade school class visited the old U.S.S. Gar (SS206) back in the 1950s. She was being used as a Reserve Pierside Trainer in Cleveland at that time, and the tour was conducted by guys who had put in their time in subs during World War II. Gar is gone now, sold for scrap and replaced by U.S.S. Cod. Cod is also retired now, preserved as a museum. Bacalao was launched with a book signing at Cod last July [2004]."

Not all of the buttons on the left side of this page go to material on this site, though it's all connected to McDaniel in some way. FleetSubmarine.com is his hobby/obsession. Though it still has a long way to go, the plan is to make it the most comprehensive Internet resource on the subject of American submarines in World War II. NavalAventure.com is a bookstore McDaniel put together, digging through Amazon's collection to assemble a nice selection of mostly military books and novels.

What's New?

8 Dec 06: J.T. has been building Revell's huge (1:72 scale) model of a Gato class submarine. Progress and pictures are to be found on this page.

19 May 06: A new interview with J.T. McDaniel, conducted by author Jacob Thomson, was added.

30 Dec 05: The Riverdale Short Story Annual 2005 is available for sale, with this website updated accordingly.

2 Dec 05:Completed editing the latest volume in the American Submarine War Patrol Reports series for Riverdale Books. J.T. will also have a couple of short stories featured in the Riverdale Short Story Annual 2005, due out later this month.

7 Feb 05: Book Review Section added. In addition to writing books, J.T. McDaniel reads a lot of them, and frequently forms an opinion, which he'll be offering here.

6 Feb 05: A New Interview with J.T. McDaniel was added.

1 Feb 05: Homepage updated. Some general tweaks to various pages.