Attack Transport : USS Charles Carroll in World War II

The story of the "Lucky Chuck," which earned six battle stars during WWII

In November 1942, the amphibious transport ship USS Charles Carroll carried troops from Norfolk to invade North Africa. In 1945 it was transferred to the Pacific for the invasion of Okinawa. In between, the "Lucky Chuck," as the ship was fondly known, participated in the invasions of Sicily, Salerno, Normandy, and southern France.

Kenneth Goldman's father, Lt. Robert W. Goldman, USNR, was aboard ship for five of her six battle operations. As a junior officer (he eventually became the ship's navigator), he held a high security clearance and saved a large portion of the documents to which he was privy. These invasion maps, photographs, ship's plans of the day, convoy position orders, enemy force assessments, and more form the backbone of Attack Transport.

Yet Goldman graciously keeps his father out of center stage in telling the "life" of a ship that participated in almost all of the major US amphibious assaults in the European Theater. Using weathered diaries and letters from other crew members, along with their memories of service, he captures the humor, boredom, combat fears, and capers on liberty that give this view from the lower deck a charm that operational histories do not have.