After the horror of Pearl Harbor, American forces in the Pacific had a long way to come back. With the nucleus of their battleship and carrier fleet destroyed, they had to rely on the much-scorned submarines of the Silent Service.

Jack McCrary, like his comrades in the submarine service, was determined not to let them down. In his battered "pig boat," the Manta, he led an ocean-wide attack on Japanese freighters and battleships that held the vaunted Imperial Navy to a standstill.

Back home, the McCrary clan, an all-Navy family, had its own problems. Helen, the free-loving sister, was sometimes a boost, but more often a menace to wartime morale. And Dad, the Admiral, was slipping fast toward dying.

And Jack McCrary, who with his dauntless crew had been the scourge of the Marshalls and the South China Sea, suddenly appeared to be losing his grip, as something unseen attacked his mind and body...