Thanksgiving is just around the corner. "LSTs: The Ships with the Big Mouth" is an inspiring new novel narrating a mariner's authentic personal account of his experiences on Landing Ship Tank 698. This very personal tale is seamlessly woven into grand historical events surrounding the Pacific theater of World War II.

"We're proud to have been a part of these great (and little) events of World War II," claims Homer Haswell, 87, who survived one of the greatest wars in U.S. history. "We were the lucky ones."

In May 1944, as a fresh graduate of Northwestern's Midshipman School at Abbott Hall, Chicago, Haswell was commissioned and received orders to proceed to New Orleans where he was to report to the LST (Landing Ship Tank) 698. At the prime of his youth, leaving a lucrative job in public relations and a young wife, Ensign Haswell embarked on a journey.

In his book "LSTs: The Ships with the Big Mouth," the author has chronicled his 15-month tour of duty on U.S.S. LST 698 through the Pacific theater of the United States' most significant war. His love letters to Fran, ship logs, action reports and navigation charts all became fodder for weaving a very personal tale into the grand historical account of the Far East operations of the U.S. Naval Forces during World War II.

It was the success of these amphibious operations that made this war like no other in history. Haswell interlaces personal observations and historical accounts seamlessly, thus imparting to the reader a view of war actions and events not traditionally studied in history books. The result: an alternative sense of history drawn from reading fascinating stories from a very personal point of view. Read it and discover how success was achieved in the campaign for U.S. battle victory in the Far East.