In September 1943, Mary Lee Coe Fowler's father, James Coe, died in a submarine somewhere in the Pacific. She was born seven months later, in April 1944.

Fowler's father, commander of the submarine Cisco, was a stranger to Fowler and her older siblings for much of their lives. The World War II era was the antithesis of our modern confessional society, in which every thought and deed is deemed worthy of public consumption. The deaths of soldiers and seamen in the 1940s were rarely discussed at home, especially after war widows remarried.

Many "war orphans" of slain veterans grew up never even knowing their fathers' birth dates, much less how they lived and died.

Fowler's mother, Rachel Coe, remarried when Fowler was 1 year old, and silence quickly settled over their household.

"You don't ask questions," Fowler said. "Kids learn that real fast."

It wasn't until Rachel Coe died in 1998 that Fowler became so curious about her father that she decided to take action. While going through her mother's things, she found James Coe's coat and a picture of him with her brother and sister.

"That's one of the triggering events that made me so curious about this man, I had to find him," she said.

The result was "Full Fathom Five: A Daughter's Search" (University of Alabama Press, $29.95), a memoir about Fowler's longing to learn more about her father's life and death.

Fowler, 64, is originally from Swarthmore, Pa., but has lived in Maine for 35 years. She taught English at the University of Southern Maine for 20 years and now teaches part-time at Freeport Community Education.

Fowler and her husband, Win, a sailmaker, have one grown daughter. They live in Pownal.

Q: What was the most difficult part of your research?

A: The most difficult part, I guess, was the emotional part, not knowing what I would find. There were at least two times it was suggested that my father made some kind of mistake on the submarine, and that's why he went down. He was the commander, and the buck stopped with him, so 76 men went down with him. One time was some submarine veteran saying, "Oh well, the best skippers brought their men home."

Q: Did you ever find out if any of that was true, or was it just suggested?

A: One rumor was that my father broke radio silence. When you use your radio, the Japanese can pick up your location, and so you should never do that. That's definitely a mistake. That was one of the times that was hardest for me, when this tour guide on the submarine I was touring said that, and then I had to go and track down that rumor and I found out that it wasn't true. But it took me a long time, you know. And the other one, the statement that the best guys bring their men home, I just decided, how could anyone know? After doing a lot of research, how could anyone know what went on in that ship?

Q: Were there any surprises?

A: The big surprise was that my father was funny. He was humorous, and he was known for that. Everybody I talked to said things like, "Gee, he was the funniest man I ever knew." Another one said, "I can't think of him without giggling." And another one said he would just roll his eyes and he would make a whole group of people laugh.

He was just a cut-up, and that was a tremendous surprise, because growing up, my older brother and sister and I, and our mother, would think about him with great sadness. And my mother could hardly make it down the stairs at Christmas because she had gotten the telegram of his being lost, his ship being overdue, in the Christmas season of 1943. So she always hated Christmas after that.

Q: World War II orphans grew up in a different era, when death was a taboo subject and a lot of people didn't talk about the person who died. How much did you learn about your father growing...