In On Board the USS Boise in World War II, the sweeping movements of fleets and the thunder of naval guns are anchored by one steady presence: Donald “DB” Fitch. He was not an admiral, not a decorated war hero in the traditional sense, and not a public figure. He was something far more powerful for a reader seeking connection. He was an ordinary young American sailor whose wartime log now forms the backbone of an extraordinary story.
Donald Bird Fitch was born on March 15, 1923, in Utah. He grew up during the Great Depression in a family that understood both hardship and hustle. His father moved between trades and business ventures. His mother ran a boarding house to help sustain the household. Donald learned early how to adapt, how to work, and how to find humor in difficult circumstances.
As a teenager, he was restless. He hunted in the Utah wilderness, tended bar underage, and earned a reputation as a prankster. School discipline did not suit him. By age seventeen, with the world sliding toward global conflict, he made a decision that would define his life. On January 14, 1941, he raised his right hand in Salt Lake City and enlisted in the United States Navy.
He reported for boot camp in San Diego and soon after boarded the USS Boise in April 1941. Within months, he would find himself at sea when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. His war began not with speeches or headlines, but with the sudden call to General Quarters and the knowledge that everything had changed.
DB served as a quartermaster, one of the Navy’s oldest and most demanding ratings. Quartermasters stood watch on the bridge. They steered the ship. They plotted courses. They maintained the deck log. They interpreted navigation data, managed signals, and ensured the vessel moved precisely where ordered. At the helm of a 10,000 ton light cruiser, accuracy meant survival.
His position placed him at the center of decision making during some of the most precarious months of the Pacific War. He steered Boise as it withdrew from Manila, maneuvered through submarine threats, escorted convoys, and later sailed alone toward Japanese waters on diversionary raids. From the bridge, he saw both the strategic picture and the immediate dangers.
Yet what makes Donald “DB” Fitch so compelling is not only his technical role. It is his voice.
Throughout the war, he kept a log. Sometimes brief, sometimes vivid, his entries captured liberty in foreign ports, frustration at mechanical failures, excitement at spotting enemy ships, and the tension of battle stations. He collected menus from Manila and Bombay. He noted the shock of seeing Pearl Harbor still scarred months after the attack. He recorded small joys and quiet fears without theatrical language. His words reflect a young man trying to make sense of a vast and violent world.
Nicknamed “Duck Butt” by his shipmates, a playful reference to his initials and middle name, DB carried himself with swagger and humor. Years later, when asked what he did during the war, he often deflected with wit, claiming he had been a USO dancer. The joke masked the reality that he had stood watch in some of the most dangerous waters of the conflict.
He was also present during one of the most emotionally charged chapters of the early war. After Boise was forced out of action before the Battle of the Java Sea, other sailors later referred to the ship as the “Reluctant Dragon.” Some resented that Boise survived while Houston and Perth were lost. DB and his shipmates carried that tension, a reminder that survival in war can come with its own burden.
Donald “DB” Fitch represents the thousands of sailors whose names rarely appear in textbooks but whose hands steered the ships, loaded the guns, and kept the engines running. Through his preserved log, readers gain direct access to the lived experience of the early Pacific War.
On Board the USS Boise in World War II is not only the story of a cruiser. It is the story of a young man from Utah who found himself at the center of global events, recorded what he saw, and ensured that decades later, we can understand what it meant to serve, endure, and remain, in his own words, “Still Here.”
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