SAILOR MAN is an examination of the combat service of James Preston Nunnally, an underage enlistee aboard the USS
Fuller
in the Pacific Theater during WWII. Popularly known as the "Queen of Attack Transports," the
received a wartime high nine battle stars for participation in that number of invasions. Nunnally was a crew member for seven of those actions (Bougainville, Saipan, Tinian, Peleliu, the Philipinnes-twice, and Okinawa). It is primarily based on letters Nunnally wrote to his son four decades after the events occurred in an attempt to explain why he had abandoned his son and digressed into a life of alcoholism. In addition to Nunnally's letters, other documents are used, such as a semi-official accounts of the
Fuller's
actions written in 1945, and interviews with Nunnally's son and sister.