Midwatch examines the little-known Navy tradition of writing the New Year’s midwatch deck log in poetry on U. S. Naval ships. All other watches of the year required mundane, minute details of ships’ condition, and nothing more. This watch, and only this watch, allowed young officers to enter the log as poetry.

The midwatch poetry written from 1941 to 1946 was formed in the crucible of World War II. Each chapter examines a ship that engaged in combat during World War II, beginning with an overview of the history of the ship. It then offers a midwatch poem (or poems) written during those years, relating the poem to that moment in history. The chapter closes with a biographical sketch of the writer(s), revealing the individual humanity of the person caught up in the inhumanity of war. The ships include giants of history, like the USS Enterprise, and small and nameless craft, like PC 1264.

The inexplicable tradition of writing the first deck log of each year in verse lays bare the humanity—in particular, the American humanity—that persisted in the most inhumane of endeavors, warfare. To assist readers unfamiliar with Navy jargon, several appendices are included.