On April 23, 1943,<b> </b>the seventy-man crew of the USS<i> Grenadier</i><b> </b>scrambled to save their submarine&mdash;and themselves&mdash;after a Japanese aerial torpedo sent it crashing to the ocean floor. Miraculously, the men were able to bring the sub back to the surface, only to be captured by the Japanese.<br><br><i>No Ordinary Joes</i> tells the harrowing story of four of the <i>Grenadier</i>&rsquo;s crew: Bob Palmer of Medford, Oregon; Chuck Vervalin of Dundee, New York; Tim McCoy of Dallas, Texas; and Gordy Cox of Yakima, Washington. All were enlistees from families that struggled through the Great Depression. The lure of service and duty to country were not their primary motivations&mdash;they were more compelled by the promise of a job that provided &ldquo;three hots and a cot&rdquo; and a steady paycheck. On the day they were captured, all four were still teenagers.<br><br>Together, the men faced unimaginable brutality at the hands of their captors in a prisoner of war camp. With no training in how to respond in the face of relentless interrogations and with less than a cup of rice per day for sustenance, each man created his own strategy for survival. When the liberation finally came, all four anticipated a triumphant homecoming to waiting families, loved ones, and wives, but instead were forced to find a new kind of strength as they struggled to resume their lives in a world that had given them up for dead, and with the aftershocks of an experience that haunted and colored the rest of their days. <br><br>Author Larry Colton brings the lives of these four &ldquo;ordinary&rdquo; heroes into brilliant focus. Theirs is a story of tragedy and courage, romance and war, loss and endurance, failure and redemption. With a scope both panoramic and disarmingly intimate, <i>No Ordinary Joes</i> is a powerful look at the atrocities of war, the reality of its aftermath, and the restorative power of love.<br><br><br><i>From the Hardcover edition.</i>