The ""Interim"" LSM(R) or Landing Ship, Medium (Rocket) was a revolutionary development in rocket warfare in World War II and the U.S. Navy's first true rocket ship. An entirely new class of commissioned warship and the forerunners of today's missile-firing naval combatants, these ships began as improvised conversions of conventional amphibious landing craft in South Carolina's Charleston Navy Yard during late 1944. They were rushed to the Pacific Theatre to support the U.S. Army and Marines with heavy rocket bombardments that devastated Japanese forces on Okinawa in 1945. Their primary mission was to deliver maximum firepower to enemy targets ashore. Yet LSM(R)s also repulsed explosive Japanese speed boats, rescued crippled warships, recovered hundreds of survivors at sea and were deployed as antisubmarine hunter-killers. Casualties were staggering: enemy gunfire destroyed one, while kamikaze attacks sank three, crippled a fourth and grazed two more. This book provides a comprehensive operational history of the Navy's 12 original ""Interim"" LSM(R)s.

Freedom-loving Howard, on a disastrous jungle search for a rumored tribe, is captivated by good-hearted Rachel, then faces life-or-death choices when she disappears in the night. Floods, loss of supplies, and raids by 'Jaguar Men, ' throw the expedition into disarray and conflict. The outcome has 500-year-old roots in efforts by teens Atl and Dahlia to find each other and their loved ones in the devastation following Cortes' invasion of the mighty Aztecs. Diverse characters in both time-lines are haunted and driven by sacrifice, betrayal, revenge, repentance, and love