David Leick, a Chico State alumnus, is having his first book published on Oct. 24 written about the history of the United States Ship Princeton, “USS Princeton: The Life and Loss of ‘Sweet P.’”
The USS Princeton became a top-of-the-line aircraft carrier in August 1943 and played a prime role in the U.S. Navy’s victory over the Imperial Japanese Navy in the Pacific War.
Leick said he has always been interested in history and has wanted to write about “World War II, specifically the Pacific … in one of my books I was reading three or four years ago, I came across this story of the Princeton and just started looking into it a little bit deeper, and basically discovered that it was quite a story.”
After being inspired by the book “Carrier Down” Leick did more digging and found first-hand accounts from the Naval History archives and Heritage Command. His bibliography is five-and-a-half pages long.
In the press release he examined, “the campaigns, aircraft, tactics, command decisions and life aboard ship during the American Pacific campaign against Japan from early 1943 until Princeton’s tragic demise in October 1944.”
Osprey, Leick’s publisher, informed him during the editing process that he was going to have to get permission from the publisher of “Carrier Down” to use the first-hand accounts or he was going to have to take all the information out.
“I contacted an editor out there with this publishing company in Texas, and they gave me permission to use those quotes,” he said. “So I was just so thankful, because, like I said, those first-hand accounts are huge, and I mentioned them in my acknowledgements right at the beginning of the book as well.”
After getting permission, Leick and his publishers continued editing the book until it was ready to publish.
Leick said from the time he started writing to the book being published, the whole process took about a year.
“I sent that manuscript off to them and it was a matter of about two weeks … I was shocked,” he said. “I mean, talk about a great Christmas gift. It happened that fast.”
He said when he first started writing he dedicated five hours a day, six days a week to get his rough draft done.
Leick himself served in the U.S. Marine Corps in Japan and had his fair share of scares while overseas.
He shared a story about a mission his crew went on where they boarded their helicopter, but were pulled off and put on a new one, then found out the original aircraft crashed, so they had to go rescue the survivors.
Leick said it wasn’t until about 10 years later that he finally accepted all that he had gone through.
“I survived something that was pretty bad, and that’s just kind of how I dealt with that,” Leick said. “So yeah, I’ve had some experiences, but in a lot of ways … you know why I chose to write about this ship.”
After getting back Leick attended Chico State and got his bachelor’s degree in physical education in 1998. Then in 2001, he got his master’s degree in the same subject along with an emphasis in biomechanics.
Leick has already started working on his second book which is going to be about the flag raising on Iwo Jima and the mistaken identity of a Navy Corpsman and a Marine in the famous photo which also stands as a statue in Washington, D.C.
Jenna McMahon can be reached at [email protected]
