Civil Rights Pioneer Elbert Williams to be remembered

I received this information on an event that will be taking place tomorrow. Sorry for not getting it posted earlier.


http://www.elbertwilliamsmemorial.com/

On Saturday, June 20, 2015, the Brownsville, Tennessee community will gather for the delayed memorial of Civil Rights Pioneer Elbert Williams at Haywood High School. Williams is the first known National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) official to be killed for his involvement in the local civil rights movement.

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Light refreshments will be provided. The memorial service will begin promptly at 9 a.m. in the gymnasium and will feature NAACP National President Cornell William Brooks as the guest speaker.

At 11 a.m., a state historical marker will be unveiled in downtown Brownsville.

Following the unveiling, members of the Elbert Williams Memorial Committee will be available for media interviews at the Brownsville Chamber of Commerce, 121 W. Main Street, on the first floor level.

A brief service will be held at 1 p.m. at Taylor Cemetery, where Williams is buried.

Follow this link to view a map and directions for Saturday’s memorial service: https://goo.gl/maps/rH1I1

A live stream of the memorial service will begin at 9 a.m. Saturday.  Log on to ustream.tv/channel/lizpug to view. 

Book Review-Grandfather Mountain: Images of America

Hardy, Michael C. Grandfather Mountain (Images of America). Charleston: Arcadia Publishing, 2014. 128 pages. ISBN 9781467121040, $21.99.


If you have ever been to a historic location or been in a new bookstore you are most likely familiar with the Images of America series. These price friendly books can provide a quality reminder of a vacation while possibly adding to the visitor's knowledge of an area. They are a standard in many cities and unfortunately sometimes serve as the only book available.


It would seem possible that at some point the well would run dry on opportunities for this series. It hasn't yet though and veteran North Carolina writer Michael C. Hardy has recently published a volume on Grandfather Mountain, the nearly 6,000 feet high North Carolina mountain that is the highest peak in the eastern Blue Ridge Mountains.


Depending on your point of view Grandfather Mountain is a mountain, a state park, or a non-profit organization. Mr. Hardy does a good job covering these aspects in the limited amount of text he is given. Books in the Images series rely almost exclusively on photos and have limited text other than brief photo captions. Good captions are what can turn a plain book of photos into a worthwhile purchase. In Grandfather Mountain Mr. Hardy delivers the goods.


Chapters include: first photographs, famous faces, Grandfather Mountain from Afar, Grandfather Mountain's Winding Roads, Singing on the Mountain, Highland Games, State Park, Flora and Fauna and Visitors From Near and Far. Chapters are usually around 10-12 pages long and have many photos with in-depth captions.


Annual events such as Singing on the Mountain and the Grandfather Mountain Highland Games are looked forward to by many people each year. Singing on the Mountain has attracted some of the biggest names in music and religion including Johnny Cash and three generations of the Graham family. The highland games has grown from a single day event to one that now spans over four days of competition. Both events receive their own chapter and have plenty of interesting photos.


The story of the completion of the Blue Ridge Parkway through the property of Grandfather Mountain is well told photographically. Grandfather Mountain is home to an incredible and diverse variety of plants and wildlife. Come face to face with the famous bear, Mildred, in the pages of this book.


Far from telling the whole history of the Grandfather Mountain property and the men who have owned it this book is not trying to do that. It succeeds admirably in what it sets out to do which is to showcase, in photos, the beauty and history that is Grandfather Mountain. For those wanting more reading material on what appears to be a fascinating history there is a small bibliography included.


Highly recommended!


Please consider visiting Michael C. Hardy's website and ordering a signed copy direct from the author. Visit by clicking here.

Lecture Dealing with St. Augustine National Cemetery

The Veterans' Council of St. Johns County and The St. Augustine 450th  Military Commemoration Committee

 is proud to announce a

Presentation by LTC. ret. Gregory A. Moore, Florida National Guard Command Historian:

The National Cemetery at St. Augustine - A Testament to Military History and Heroes

 

Tuesday, 19 November, at 7 PM

 

In the Ringhaver Student Center , Virginia Room , at Flagler College

 

Public Invited - Free Program

 

Colonel Moore will be drawing from his newly published book

Sacred Ground: The Military Cemetery at St. Augustine , the Nation’s oldest, and copies will be available after his talk for purchase and signature by the author. Call  823-0696 for questions.

Gregory A. Moore

 

Biographical Data: Lt. Col (Ret.) Gregory A. Moore

Gregory A,  Moore ( B.A. , U.S.  Military Academy , 1974: J.D., University  of Notre Dame Law School , 1982) is Command Historian of the Florida National Guard, where he has served since June 5, 2001. In addition to his responsibilities of preserving the history and traditions of the  Florida National Guard he is tasked with  educating members of the public, as well as the organization, about  that history through publications of monograms, maintenance and operation of the St. Francis Barracks Museum, and guided tours of the  Barracks and Post of St. Augustine, to include the national Cemetery. Over the years, Colonel Moore has served as a board member or trustee of a number of historically-oriented organizations, to include the Seminole Wars Foundation, St. Augustine  Historical Society and Fort Mose Historical Society. His paper, "The 1702 Siege of St. Augustine: English Miscalculation of Spanish  Good  Fortune," was read at the symposium, "Firestone and Ashes: the Siege of 1702," sponsored by the St. Augustine Historical Society, and appeared in El Escribano in 2002.

Lecture on Forgotten Cemeteries in St. Augustine

Tolomato Talk 2013

Forgotten  Graveyards: St. Augustine's Buried Cemeteries

The Tolomato CemeteryPreservation Association is sponsoring a talk by Dr. Kathleen Deagan on the hidden First Spanish Period cemeteries of St Augustine. The event will be held on Sunday, November 17, 2013 at 3:00 pm at the Bishop Baker Center, located on the grounds of the Cathedral Parish School at 259 St George St. (between Bridge and St Francis Streets) in St Augustine.

The cemeteries that are still visible in St. Augustine are only the most recent chapter in the history of the town's reverence for the deceased. Less well-know are the many hidden graveyards from St. Augustine's First Spanish Period (1565-1763) that have been largely forgotten and obscured by development over the centuries.   At least six of these cemeteries have been located and studied by archaeologists and bioarchaeologists, and Dr. Deagan's presentation will focus on what we have learned from their work over the past 75 years.

Bishop Augustin Verot is buried in the
center walkway of Tolomato Cemetery.
Courtesy Robert Redd

Dr. Kathleen Deagan is an historical archaeologist who is currently the Distinguished Research Curator of Archaeology Emerita and the Lockwood Professor of Florida and Caribbean Archaeology at the University of Florida's Florida Museum of Natural History.  She has taught at the University of Florida since 1982 and is the author of more than 70 publications, most of them relating to early Spanish settlement of the Caribbean. Dr. Deagan was awarded the J.C. Harrington Medal for Distinguished Lifetime Achievement by the Society for Historical Archaeology in 2003, and in 2006 she received the "Order of La Florida," awarded by the city of St. Augustine.

The event is free of charge and on-site parking is available.

For further information, pleases contact board@tolomatocemetery.com.

Press Release--New World War II Book Dealing with German Occupied Crete

From my good friends at Crown Publishing this is a book that looks like it would be of interested to anybody interested in World War II. If this looks of interest please be sure to check back. Crown Publishing is generously going to provide a copy for a giveaway on this blog. Please be sure to support them in return by visiting their site and seeing the other fine  books they have available.

 

The true story of an unlikely band of courageous men--British intelligence officers and Cretan resistance fighters--who waged an underground war against the German occupation of Crete and pulled off an improbable and remarkable mission: kidnapping the German commander of the island.

The Ariadne Objective

The Underground War to Rescue Crete from the Nazis

by Wes Davis

Advance Praise for The Ariadne Objective

“History both crucial and swashbuckling.” —Library Journal

 

“An exciting, tense narrative that unfolds like an espionage novel.” —Booklist

 

“An exciting, earnestly narrated World War II story.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Meticulously researched and gracefully narrated. The Ariadne Objective shows close-up the final gaudy flowering of the imperial swashbucklers—indifferent to discomfort, fluent in many languages, reckless, eccentrically decadent, mischief-makers, never unintentionally ill-mannered—who made their home in the world, before George Smiley took over his grudging service to the Empire.”

—Geoffrey Wolff, author of A Day at the Beach

 

“Wes Davis’ brilliant chronicle of the battle for German-occupied Crete is doubly rich in its description of character and of the perilous varieties of combat. This story tells how classically literate and well-nigh fearless Britons allied with brigandish locals to confound, confuse, and finally defeat the Nazi occupiers. It reveals how completely British improvisation and perception of local realities served to overcome a ruthless enemy.”

—Robert Stone, author of Dog Soldiers

“In the grand tradition of John le Carré, Wes Davis has created a thrilling tale of espionage in the face of great peril. This is gripping history, masterfully told.” —McKay Jenkins, author of The Last Ridge

 

“The Ariadne Objective is a ripping yarn, and Wes Davis is the perfect person to spin it. Ariadne will appeal to fans of Ben Macintyre books like Double Cross and Operation Mincemeat and, in fact, to anyone who enjoys a good story well told. This book kept me up well past my bedtime: I couldn’t go to sleep until I finished it.”

—Ben Yagoda, author of About Town and How to Not Write Bad

In 1991, while working on an archaeological excavation in Crete, WES DAVIS learned of a daring, little-known military operation that disrupted Hitler’s control of the island during World War II. A group of unconventional British soldiers infiltrated occupied Crete, charged with the task of sabotaging Nazi objectives in the region by joining forces with Cretan partisans. Their acts of espionage culminated in a cunning plot to abduct the island’s German commander.

After decades of research that took Davis from Crete, to the depths of London’s National Archives, where he combed through thousands of declassified documents, and to the Imperial War Museum, where he found the unpublished diary of one of the amateur spies, this incredible true story comes to life in THE ARIADNE OBJECTIVE: The Underground War to Rescue Crete from the Nazis (Crown Publishers; November 12, 2013). Davis’s brilliant debut re-creates this secret war from the perspective of the gentlemen soldiers who found themselves serving in Crete because, as one of them put it, they had made “the obsolete choice of Greek at school.” The group of unlikely heroes included Patrick Leigh Fermor, a Byronic figure and future travel-writing luminary; John Pendlebury, a swashbuckling archaeologist with a glass eye and a swordstick; Xan Fielding, the writer who would produce the English translations of books like The Bridge on the River Kwai and Planet of the Apes; and Sandy Rendel, a future Times of London reporter, who prided himself on a disguise that left him looking more ragged and fierce than the locals he fought alongside.

Anchored by a fascinating cast of characters and set in one of the war’s most exotic locales, THE ARIADNE OBJECTIVE sheds light on the pivotal mission to save Crete and block Hitler’s march to the East.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: WES DAVIS served for two years as an assistant to the director of excavations at Kavousi in Eastern Crete, not far from the plateau where Patrick Leigh Fermor parachuted onto the island during WWII. He holds a Ph.D. in English Literature from Princeton University and is a former assistant professor of English at Yale University. Editor of the Harvard University Press Anthology of Modern Irish Poetry, he has written for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and The Nation, among other publications.

THE ARIADNE OBJECTIVE The Underground War to Rescue Crete from the Nazis
by Wes Davis

Crown Publishers • November 12, 2013 • Price: $26.00 hardcover • 352 pages
ISBN 978-0-307-46013-4

Also available as an ebook

Visit www.crownpublishing.com

New App for National Mall World War II Memorial

Trust for the National Mall Launches First-of-its-Kind

Mobile App for World War II Memorial

 

Mobile App Brings the WWII Memorial to Life with Interactive Learning Experiences

 

WASHINGTON, D.C. (November 7, 2013) – The Trust for the National Mall,  the official non-profit partner of the National Park Service dedicated to restoring and improving the National Mall, announced today the release of the smartphone app for the World War II Memorial. The free app, WWII Memorial, will be available for iOS and Android, and is available for download on iTunes and Google Play beginning today – just in time for Veterans Day.

 

The WWII Memorial App is a part of the Trust’s 21^st Century Learning Initiative to help today’s digitally sophisticated visitors connect with and get the most educational value out of the National Mall.

 

“Each year the National Mall draws millions of visitors from across the country and around the world to come learn about and experience the history and values of this country,” said Caroline Cunningham, president, Trust for the National Mall. “We strive to reach visitors in many ways, including digitally, as we work to preserve the living history of the National Mall.”

 

WWII Memorial App Features

 

The WWII Memorial App enables users to explore the history behind the Memorial and the millions of Americans it honors. The app is designed for visitors to the Memorial as well as those researching information about the Memorial and World War II remotely.

 

The app has straightforward navigation with easy-to-use features and breathtaking photography of the Memorial. Features include:

 

·         Memorial at a Glance: Learn about the Memorial through a scrolling timeline detailing its construction while teaching users key facts about its architecture (do you know how many pounds of bronze were used to build the Memorial?).

·         Operation: Collect:  Engage with an interactive scavenger hunt on the Memorial. Complete “missions” in the Atlantic and Pacific theaters, as well as the home front, and learn about the moments that changed the course of history.

·         Operation: Explore: Explore the Memorial using an interactive map and learn the meaning and symbolism behind its design as you become immersed in World War II.

·         Stories of Service:  Experience the first-hand accounts from those who served. Personalize your World War II Memorial experience by selecting from a variety of stories from every state and territory, branch of service, or theater.

·         Path to Victory: Follow an interactive timeline detailing the significant milestones of the war – from the bombing of Pearl Harbor to the Battle of the Bulge to Victory in Europe (VE) Day.

·         Honoring the Fallen: Through the American Battle Monuments Commission database, users can look up the name of service members who paid the ultimate sacrifice during World War II.

 

The WWII Memorial App is the first monument-specific app developed by the Trust for the National Mall. Plans are underway to use mobile technology in other areas of the park to help tell America’s story in new and engaging ways that complements the majestic monuments that make up the National Mall. 

 

“Initiatives like this will help to educate a whole new generation about the National Mall and what it stands for,” said Bob Vogel, superintendent of the National Mall and Memorial Parks. “We know that young people are interacting with the world in new ways and that the National Park Service needs to keep up if we are to remain relevant. This app will help us do that.”

 

The WWII Memorial App was made possible in partnership with The Altria Group, the Dr. Scholl Foundation, the Friends of the National WWII Memorial, and the National Park Service. As supporters of the 21^st Century Learning Initiative, The Altria Group and the Dr. Scholl Foundation have contributed more than $3 million to the Trust to develop engaging and interactive education experiences both on the National Mall and online.

 

Download the WWII Memorial App for iTunes -- http://bit.ly/WWIIiTunes

Download the WWII Memorial App for Google Play -- http://bit.ly/WWIIGoogle

 

Editor’s Note: 

 

HR24 Quick Time b-roll & sound bites (1920x1080 HD) of Washington, DC middle school students debuting the app for World War II veterans can be downloaded here:  https://www.dropbox.com/sh/eh1xsllk9af531a/oRN-p9PuJr

 

HD Images of the students and vets can be downloaded here:   https://www.dropbox.com/sh/qbg2mm2jr5jlnp0/-4sq9UQeBO

 

###

 

About the Trust for the National Mall

The Trust for the National Mall is the official non-profit partner of the National Park Service dedicated to restoring and improving the National Mall, while providing new educational and volunteer opportunities that connect the park’s 25 million annual visitors to the National Mall’s rich history. For more information on the Trust for the National Mall, please visit www.nationalmall.org.

 

The WWII Memorial App is part of the Trust for the National Mall’s 21^st Century Learning Initiative, and was developed to enhance the visitor experience with details on the history and meaning of the World War II Memorial and its significance to the American experience.

 

 

John F. Kennedy Memorial Issue of Saturday Evening Post

It's a bit off-topic but I thought this worth sharing because of the importance of the original event.

 

 

The Saturday Evening Post Remembers JFK on the 50^th Anniversary of his Assassination

Archives Chronicle a Nation in Mourning

The original cover to the December 14, 1963
Saturday Evening Post featuring a Norman
Rockwell cover.

Indianapolis— The shot that killed John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963 left an indelible mark on America. The Saturday Evening Post was there, capturing the thoughts and tributes of the celebrated men who knew him well in its December 14, 1963 issue, which was devoted almost entirely to memorializing the fallen president.

Now, 50 years later, the Post opens its vault to pay honor to our 35^th president as his contemporaries knew him. The September/October 2013 issue of The Saturday Evening Post shares excerpts from the issue:

·         Former president Eisenhower on the culprit: “In a population as large as ours there is bound to be a certain number of such warped people, but their existence does not indicate that the people of the United States have become lawless.”

·         Journalist Bill Davidson on the Kennedy family’s courage: “According to friends, [Jacqueline] Kennedy never broke down once during the dreadful night at Bethesda Naval Hospital or when she returned to the White House.”

·         Pulitzer Prize Winning Historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. on JFK’s legacy: “Still, if he had not done all that he would have hoped to do, finished all that he begun, he had given the nation a new sense of itself—a new spirit, a new style, a new conception of its role and destiny.”

The full story, along with the Norman Rockwell portrait that graced the cover of the 1963 issue, is available online at saturdayeveningpost.com/jfk-memoriam. Additionally, The Saturday Evening Post is issuing a commemorative reprint of the John F. Kennedy In-Memoriam issue in its original-as-published format. For more information, call 1-800-558-2376 or go to shopthepost.com.

About The Saturday Evening Post

For nearly 300 years, The Saturday Evening Post has chronicled American history in the making—reflecting the distinctive characteristics and values that define the American way. Today’s Post continues the grand tradition of providing art, entertainment and information in a stimulating mix of idea-driven features, cutting-edge health and medical trends—plus fiction, humor, and laugh-out-loud cartoons. A key feature is the Post Perspective, which brings historical context to current issues and hot topics such as health care, religious freedom, education, and more. Tracing its roots to Benjamin Franklin, The Saturday Evening Post mirrors cherished American ideals and values, most memorably illustrated by its iconic cover artist Norman Rockwell. The Post is also known for publishing such literary greats as Ray Bradbury, Agatha Christie, William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Edgar Allan Poe, and Kurt Vonnegut, and continues to seek out and discover emerging writers of the 21^st century. Headquartered in Indianapolis, the Post is a publication of the nonprofit Saturday Evening Post Society, which also publishes the award-winning youth magazines Turtle, Humpty Dumpty, and Jack and Jill.  

 

“As the nation changed, the Post changed, but it looks to its past as a fertile ground for its future.”——Starkey Flythe, Jr, Former Post Executive Editor

Book Review--Young Men and Fire

MacLean, Norman. Young Men and Fire. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992. B/W photos, maps. ISBN 9780226500621, $16.

While it might seem that fighting wild fires should have become safer in the years since the 1949 Mann Gulch fire recent events have proven that to be not the case.

Norman MacLean, in his masterpiece Young Men and Fire, takes readers closer than they would ever want or realistically need to be to a wild fire.

On a hot dry August afternoon 15 young men, 13 were under 24 years old, jumped out of an airplane into the remote forests of Montana to cut and dig a fire break in hopes of containing a fire in Mann Gulch. They carried limited supplies and tools.  They were confident in the abilities and planned on working through the night and being back at camp the next day. By late afternoon only three were still alive.

With a skill few authors could match MacLean works through the history of smoke jumping, the lives these young men would have been leading, the flight to the fire and the decision to jump, the awful turn of events as mother nature showed her wrath, the tragedy of the following day, the questions regarding those that were there and their actions and his research into the fire. Readers will meet the last two remaining survivors and follow along as they struggle to remember events that had happened nearly fifty years before.



The Mann Gulch memorial, installed in 1999,

 located at the mouth of Meriwether Canyon.

All along we see an author facing his own mortality through the deaths of twelve young men. MacLean interweaves stories of his life and we realize he understands he could have been one of those who left a lasting memory on Mann Gulch in the form of a concrete cross. Instead he was allowed to live a full life and devote the last of it to paying homage to these young men and making sure they were not forgotten.

This book is not for everybody. It does get a bit rambling at time. It doesn't always flow the way you might expect. The book had not been edited for publication at the time of MacLean's death nor was it complete. The publisher of the book has done little to change the book. That is good. For some readers there will also be a bit too much fire science involved. In researching the fire it became imperative to figure out what happened and why the fire behaved as it did. While certainly being far from a textbook readers will finish with a much better understanding of fire behavior and the danger that it can pose.

This is a book I have read on multiple occasions and will no doubt be returning to again. Highly recommended!

Book Review--The Vast Unknown: America's First Ascent of Everest

Coburn, Broughton. The Vast Unknown: America's First Ascent of Everest. Crown Publishing, New York, 2013. B/W photos, index, notes, further readings, map, 300 pages, 254 pages of text. ISBN 9780307887146, $26.

It has now been 60 years since Edmund Hillary and Tenzig Norgay first climbed Mt. Everest via the South Col. It has now been 50 years since the first American set foot on the summit. In the ensuing years a near mountain of books have been written about Mt. Everest and it begs the question as to whether we really need another one. I would answer that with this being the 50 year anniversary of an American reaching the summit, the 50 year anniversary of the first ascent by the North Face and with the overall quality of the writing here the answer is YES.

For Everest aficionados there may not be a lot new here. For someone new to the literature of climbing or just picking this book up because it looks interesting there is plenty of meat on the bone. We are introduced to the main players of the 1963 American expedition in their own habitat. Many are college drop outs and most have moved west in order to feed their passion, but maybe not their stomachs as jobs were scarce, for climbing. The Tetons were home to many of the young men who ultimately would go half way around the world to attempt a climb less than a dozen men had been successful at.

We are introduced to and come to know men such as Barry Bishop, Jake Breitenbach, Barry Corbet, Norman Dyhrenfurth, Tom Hornbein, Lute Jerstad, Dick Pownall, Barry Prather, Will Siri, James Ullman, Willi Unsoeld, and Jim Whitaker amongst many others including Sherpas. Don't worry about keeping all the names straight there is a very useful "cast of characters" listing at the front of the book.

We follow along with the difficulties of raising funds, gathering supplies, planning the climb, dealing with Sherpas and other logistical nightmares. While this is a team effort, and that is repeated many times, there was infighting regarding who would go where and when and most of all there was dissension regarding the North Face route and if it should even be attempted.

The book has essentially three parts: introductions, pre-climb and preparation, the climb, and life after the climb. All three parts have value and are worth reading. They may interest different readers in different ways however. Those familiar with the story may be most interested in the later portion of the book dealing with the climbers lives after the climb. Many readers may just be interested in the climb itself however and that is more than adequately covered.

Jim Whitaker atop Mt. Everest
May 1, 1963.
Photo: Nawang Gombu/National
Geographic

The political situation of the time is always a running backdrop though out the book. The Russians were working to arm the Cubans and the Kennedy administration was having to deal with ramifications of that. Russia had also beaten the United States into space and we were playing catch up. China and India were in a tense period with the possibility of war a reality. While China had made claims to have summited the mountain in 1960 there were doubts about the truth of these claims. The Chinese were of course leery of Americans being on Everest and were concerned about spying missions or spy cameras being put in place in this pre satellite era. All of these issues helped lead to a situation that had the eyes of the world on these men. The United States did not want to shoulder another perceived failure and ultimately this group of men delivered!

And while the outcome is a positive and uplifting one there is a loneliness and sadness in the story as well. While it is true that climbers share a special bond, "the brotherhood of the rope" as Coburn says, they can be solitary men as well. Even when part of a team it is man against the mountain. It is something those of us on the outside do not completely comprehend. Also, to climb mountains is to court death. Do it for any length of time and you will look death in the eye; yours or someone close to you. Climbers know and accept that risk.

Well written and fast moving this is a book that anybody with an interest in climbing should read. If you are looking for a good adventure story or are interested in man vs. nature this is a book you should consider. Recommended!

Thanks go out to Crown for providing a complimentary review copy.

Book Review--Frozen in Time

Zuckoff, Mitchell. Frozen in Time: An Epic Story of Survival and a Modern Quest for Lost Heroes of World War II. Harper Collins, New York, NY, 2013. B/W photos, index, bibliography, notes. ISBN 9780062273833, $28.99.


The name Greenland evokes the thought of lush trees and plants, flowers, and a paradise area. The fact is Greenland is a harsh and almost uninhabitable area frozen over with ice and with temperatures and winds that should not be braved except by those with proper gear and training. The men from the B-17 that crashed in Greenland during a World War II search and rescue mission had neither.

Mitchell Zuckoff is no stranger to World War II writing, having written the book Lost in Shangri-La, and here tells the little known story of nine men pitted against the elements and the struggle to survive and the struggle of the United States military to rescue them.

Mitchell Zuckoff
Courtesy: http://www.mitchellzuckoff.com/

The book is told from two different time frames. There is the World War II era story and then the modern day search and recovery story. For me, I found the World War II portion of the book the most interesting and I feel that this book ultimately could have been two separate works. This is not to say that the modern story is without interest, I just became more wrapped up in the survival story of the World War II men.

Zuckoff begins with some background on Greenland and its strategic importance during the war. Being only six hours from New York City there was real concern about Greenland being used as a staging area for an air attack against the United States. In addition if Germany had been able to establish posts in Greenland they would have a tactical edge by knowing weather patterns that were headed toward Europe. It was becoming "a war for weather". If this was not enough, Greenland was also the main source for cryolite, a material essential for the production of aluminum and thus vital in the manufacture of war related airplanes.

During November 1942 a C-53 Skytrooper on a return mission to the west coast of Greenland crash landed. Miraculously the plane stayed intact and all five men aboard survived. Thus begins our story. A B-17 with nine men aboard goes on a search and rescue mission that ends with their plane crashing after turning around while "flying in milk". All nine men survive with plane breaking in two; the tail section hanging precariously over a crevasse. The men are not trained for this type of survival and do not have supplies and provisions for an extended stay on the ice. They rig the tail end of the plane to keep it from crashing into the crevasse and it becomes both home and protector. During the first frightful weeks they live on the meager rations that were aboard the plane as they were doled out by Captain Armand Monteverde. Eventually they are spotted which allows food and supply drops to begin. Despite food and the occasional letter from home the men are still pitted against the wild. Rescue attempts are launched and fail. Two of these attempts were made by John Pritchard and Benjamin Bottoms in a Gruman Duck. The first attempt rescued two men but the second ended in a crash landing killing the pilots and the one rescued man aboard. Further rescue attempts were made by various means as the men's situation became more desperate. Frostbite, gangrene, boredom and mental illness became the enemy rather than Nazi Germany as their stay on the ice grew longer.

After having learned about this incident author Zuckoff was put in touch with modern day adventurer Lou Sapienza who hoped to locate the Duck and if possible bring theplane and the remains of the three service men home. Sapienza is the somewhat unorganized CEO of North South Polar Inc, an under-funded organization committed to finding the remains of missing service men and women in the most challenging locations imaginable. Zuckoff is not just an author tagging along. He helps bankroll part of the mission and works with the team once they finally arrive in Greenland. Along the way we see Sapienza deal with government bureaucracy, bad weather, malfunctioning equipment, and a continued shortage of money. Despite the hiccups along the way Sapienza remains confident in the teams abilities and he continues to push forward.

Frozen in Time is a story that needed to be told and has now been done so by a wonderful story-teller. Both modern and historical teams were in a race against time to achieve their mission. As a reader you will probably feel yourself in a race as well as you notice the pages turning rapidly. This is a story of real life heroes; those who are willing to give up their own lives to help others. Strongly recommended!

Discovery Channel to Recreate Hindenburg Disaster

Received in today's email. While off topic this looks like it could be interesting.

Photos courtesy of Discovery Channel

                     

CURIOSITY Re-creates Hindenburg Disaster to Uncover the Mystery Behind What Actually Destroyed it

“What Destroyed The Hindenburg?” premieres Sunday, Dec. 16 at 9 PM E/P on Discovery Channel’s CURIOSITY series

(Los Angeles, Calif.) – Dozens of theories exist about how the Hindenburg went down during the night of May 6, 1937. Yet three quarters of a century later, there is still no clear answer. Many theories emerged immediately following the crash. Was it a bullet? A static electric charge? A fundamental flaw in its design? Or could it have been an act of sabotage with a bomb?

 

“What Destroyed The Hindenburg?,” airing Sunday, Dec. 16 at 9 PM E/P on Discovery Channel’s CURIOSITY series, conducts experiments never attempted before by building three replicas of the airship and putting the leading theories to the test.

Due to the scale and volume of the Hindenburg – along with the intricacies of its design – no one has been able to provide a satisfactory explanation of how or why the disaster occurred, until now.

In the most ambitious testing program ever undertaken, CURIOSITY attempts to crack the mystery by recreating the disaster. “We’re examining and testing every hypothesis in the lab, selecting those that are scientifically possible and taking them outside to test on our huge scale models,” said Steve Wolf, one of the lead CURIOSITY investigators. "Testing on this scale has never been attempted."

Few disasters have left such an impression on the world or had such an impact on a single industry. The end of the Hindenburg marked the end of the Golden Age of airship travel. And for the first time ever, CURIOSITY sheds new light on the mystery behind what really happened on board that night.

“What Destroyed The Hindenburg?” is produced by Blink Films for Discovery Channel. CURIOSITY is overseen by Vice President, Development and Production Howard Swartz and Senior Vice President, Development and Production Simon Andreae. To learn more, go to www.discovery.com, on Facebook at Facebook.com/discovery and on Twitter @Discovery. Intel is a presenting sponsor of “What Destroyed The Hindenburg?”

About Discovery ChannelDiscovery Channel is dedicated to creating the highest quality non-fiction content that informs and entertains its consumers about the world in all its wonder, diversity and amazement. The network, which is distributed to 100.8 million U.S. homes, can be seen in 210 countries and territories, offering a signature mix of compelling, high-end production values and vivid cinematography across genres including, science and technology, exploration, adventure, history and in-depth, behind-the-scenes glimpses at the people, places and organizations that shape and share our world. For more information, please visit www.discovery.com.

About Discovery Communications
Discovery Communications (Nasdaq: DISCA, DISCB, DISCK) is the world's #1 nonfiction media company reaching more than 1.8 billion cumulative subscribers in 209 countries and territories. Discovery is dedicated to satisfying curiosity through 149 worldwide television networks, led by Discovery Channel, TLC, Animal Planet, Science and Investigation Discovery, as well as U.S. joint venture networks OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network, The Hub and 3net, the first 24-hour 3D network. Discovery also is a leading provider of educational products and services to schools and owns and operates a diversified portfolio of digital media services, including Revision3. For more information, please visit www.discoverycommunications.com.

Off Topic--CD Review Monster Ballads Xmas

Monster Ballads X-Mas. Razor & Tie, LLC. New York, NY, 2007.


Yeah, yeah, it's off topic by a long ways but it's my blog so what the heck. That and I love Christmas music so it seemed appropriate to me.

Coming of age in the 1980's allowed me to listen to some of the best in metal there has been. OK we're not talking Led Zeppelin or vintage Black Sabbath but the hair metal era was a great time for music. Long may it live on great compilations like this one.

Monster Ballads Xmas contains 15 mostly rocking tracks. As with any compilation of course some are better than others. This one has extremes on both ends. Some songs are great versions and there are a couple of clunkers thrown in as well.

For me this CD gets off to a great start with Skid Row doing a somewhat punk sounding version of Jingle Bells. It's not Sebastian Bach but this track gets the CD going in the right direction right from the start. Winger does a great version of the John Lennon classic Happy Christmas (War is Over). I really liked the mixing of acoustic and electric guitar on this track.

Twisted Sister join forces with Lita Ford and belt out a version of I'll Be Home for Christmas that grew on me after a few listenings. It wasn't my favorite at first but Dee and Lita show they can both sing. Good musicianship backing them here. Geoff Tate and Queensryche do an admirable version of White Christmas. It's good but it didn't give Tate the chance to let his voice soar like he can. He could give Josh Groban a run for his money on Oh Holy Night if you ask me! For pure rock 'n roll fun you can't miss Firehouse belting out Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree. You'll bang your head! I think Brenda Lee would be proud of them.

Tom Keifer (from Cinderella) contributes a great blues version of Blue Christmas. This really shouldn't be too shocking for those who remember Cinderella. This may be one of the under appreciated tracks on this CD. Stryper obliges our craving for live music with a really very good version of Winter Wonderland. Sure it's kind of corny with the normal concert interaction between band and audience with Michael Sweet asking three times if the crowd was ready for Christmas. That's OK because it leads to his singing a really powerful version "Stryper style" as he puts it. Good guitar and drum work. The album closes out with Billy Idol who really is out of place here. He never would have been considered metal let alone hair metal. That said his original tune Christmas Love is surprisingly good and as he says "if everybody gives then everybody receives".

There were a couple of middle of the road tracks for me. Dokken does a serviceable job on Santa Claus is Coming to Town. I grew up with MTV so it's hard to beat Bruce Springsteen on this tune. While Nelson always seemed pretty corny the brothers did a pretty good job here with Jingle Bell Rock.

I really liked L.A. Guns and Faster Pussycat when they were at their best. The Guns version of Run Rudolph Run didn't do it and the Trent Reznor/Marilyn Manson inspired version of Silent Night from Faster Pussycat left me a bit disappointed. I kept waiting for it to explode and it never did. Danger Danger and Enuff Z'Nuff both performed what appear to be original songs that I don't think we'll be hearing too much of in the future. Poor Jani Lane from Warrant though may have laid the biggest egg on this one though. I have yet to get through Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.  My biggest non music complaint about this is the lack of liner notes. All you get is a song/band listing with song publisher information and in some cases what record label a band is on.

Despite these being Christmas themed songs the bands really did a fine job overall. While pretty well sticking to the original versions there was enough new and creative on these songs to satisfy. The guitar and drum work reminded me of how good some of these bands were musically and overall the vocals were strong.

If you were a hair metal fan in the 1980's you really should pick this CD up. It'll bring back some great memories. If you are having a Christmas party and want some great rock music playing in the background this could be your best bet. If nothing else it'll keep the guests guessing as to who the bands are.

Book Review: The Houses of St. Augustine

Nolan, David, Jean Ellen Fitzpatrick, and Ken Barrett Jr. The Houses of St. Augustine . Pineapple Press, Sarasota, FL. 1995. 102 pages, index, bibliography, color photos and illustrations. ISBN 9781561640690 $24.95.


Founded in the mid 1500's the city of St. Augustine, FL is heralded as the oldest continually inhabited city in the nation. It has survived several changes in "ownership", war and peace, boom and bust, and progress and preservation. The architecture of the city is a testament to these changes and author David Nolan along with artist Jean Ellen Fitzpatrick and photographer Ken Barrett, Jr. take us on an educational, fun, and at times moving tour of the city.

What we have here is part travel guide, part art/photography book, and part history. This slim and handsome volume melds the three together well. The chapters are broken into seven time frames each of which contains a descriptive essay and many photos of houses corresponding to the essay. Each photo includes a description some of which are in more depth than others.

Like most cities with a historical significance St. Augustine can boast of houses with a wide variety of influences. The Victorian era includes houses with towers and turrets features seldom, if ever, used in building today. The late 19th century brought about an interest in the Moorish Revival style and St. Augustine is home to one of the largest collections of this Hispanic influenced style of building. The early part of the 20th century brought the Bungalow style house to the city and with modern stylings the condominium and subdivision have taken root.

Not all has been a historical preservation success however. As author David Nolan points out the city has been through what is called "preservation by bulldozer". In a rush to recreate historical looking buildings true historical homes and buildings have been lost. Nolan points out the example of the main tourist area, St. George St., that features many new buildings featuring the look, but not feel, of Spanish Colonial architecture. These buildings are the home to many t-shirt, souvenir, ghost tour, and other tourist related shops. Lest we feel that developers are the only ones destroying architecturally significant buildings. Flagler College has played a role as well having torn down a building known as "The Shingles". Built by impressionist painter Felix de Crano the home served as an artist haven before being used by a local hospital. Despite its significance as the last "shingle style" house in the city it was demolished in 1994.

While maybe a bit dated in feel this is a fascinating book for those interested in historic preservation and for those wanting to take a deeper look at our "Oldest City". A map, or maybe several, would be an improvement for this book. If you are wanting to take a walking tour to see some of these houses a map would make planning the journey a whole lot easier. The photo captions do include addresses so modern GPS makes finding the locations easy however.

A reminder: Most of the locations included in the book are private. Please respect the owners privacy!

Villa Zorayda Museum. A fine example
of Moorish Revival Architecture in
St. Augustine.