Shortly after one the morning of September 11, 1943, the destroyer USS Rowan (DD 405), was torpedoed by German e-boats. In less than a minute, the ship was at the bottom of the Mediterranean and two-hundred-four men were dead, including Francis Kirwin "Bob" Seeley.Among the seventy-two survivors was his older brother, Lewis Everett Seeley. Wracked by grief and guilt, Lewis spent the next four decades trying to forget that night. But eventually, he found himself unable to ignore or resist the insistent nightmares of the sinking. He realized that the only way he could lay to rest the ghosts of his past was to seek out the company of his shipmates. Only with their help could he piece together the broken fragments of his life.
