Twelve Desperate Miles

The Epic World War II Voyage of the SS Contessa

De: Tim Brady

Narrado por: Joe Barrett

Audie Award Nominee, History, 2013

The Dirty Dozen meets Band of Brothers in this true story of how a rusty old New Orleans banana boat staffed with an unlikely crew of international merchant seamen, a gang of inmates from a local jail, and a French harbor pilot spirited out of Morocco by O.S.S. agents in the trunk of a Chevy, were drafted into service in WW II - and heroically succeeded in setting the stage for Patton's epic invasion of North Africa. While portraying the ship's journey day-by-day and describing its colorful crew, Twelve Desperate Miles chronicles the overall November 1942 invasion of Axis forces and its aftermath, as well as the critical but unsung role played by the Contessa.

©2012 Tim Brady (P)2012 AudioGO

A cameo of USA's entry into WWII

A complex tale with several story lines funneling into the USAs first assault on the African coast in WWII. It makes personal the stories of individuals drawn together by that epic. It also displays the struggles and lessons learned in that first successful but clumsy event. The egotistical Patton is compared to the self sacrifice of so many others...Americans, Africans, Brits and Frenchmen.

good info on war terrible narrator

Where does Twelve Desperate Miles rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

this is okay for those of us who know little about north africa, but too much unimportant information that has nothing to do with the acutal operation

What did you like best about this story?

basic info about war in north africa and morroco conditions during it

How could the performance have been better?

the narrator kept switching accents with different characters but he was horrible and wold mix french with english and then southern . would have been better if he did away with the accents and just read the book. the accents were very distracting because they were so bad I would recommend someone read this book or find another narrator.

Any additional comments?

read it and dont listen to this version

Found myself caught up in history

At times you would almost think this was a movie or such and forget that it was actual history that took place. I learned so much about the events of surrounding this ship and the people that fought in World War II.