We Die Alone

 Howarth, David. We Die Alone. Guilford, CT: Lyons Press 1955. Print.

First Sentences:

Even at the end of March, on the Arctic coast of northern Norway, there is no sign of spring. 

 

By then, the polar winter night is over....There is nothing green at all: no flowers or grass, and no buds on the stunted trees.


Description:

As we drift into the fall months of cooler temperatures, of warmer jackets, and maybe a few snowflakes, it's a bit shocking to read a true story revolving around really, and I mean REALLY COLD weather. David Howarth's We Die Alone: A WW II Epic of Escape and Endurance

is exacly such a gripping, historical adventure set in the frigid temperatures of northern Norway. But be warned. When you read this book, it's best to have on warm clothes and a hot drink nearby, preferably sitting in front of a roaring fire with a cozy blanket wrapped around you.

During World War II in 1943, twelve Norwegian resistance fighters embarked on a mission of sabatoge in the northernmost part of Norway, an isolated outpost controlled by the Nazis and vital to their control of sea routes. The saboteurs' goal was to blow up key Nazi munitions depots and organize Norwegian resistance in that area. 

Unfortunately, the men were betrayed and eleven of the Norwegians were killed upon reaching their target.

But one man escaped, Jan Baalsrud, by running across frozen fields that night partially barefoot (he'd lost a shoe when jumping from their boat into the sub-freezing water). On top of that, he was hobbled by a bleeding foot where one of his toes had been shot off. 

To avoid capture, he had to swim (again in the sub-freezing water) from their target on an island to the mainland of Norway, then set out on foot (deep snow, no shoe, bleeding toe, remember?) for dry clothing, shelter, food, and help to reach safety in a bordering neutral country. 

And so begins his journey of months filled with isolated countryside, high mountains, deep snow, German patrols, an avalanche, and, of course, the unrelenting, freezing temperatures.

In the valley bottom were frozen lakes where the going was hard and smooth; but between them the snow lay very deep, and it covered a mass of boulders, and there he could not tell as he took each step whether his foot would fall upon rock or ice, or a snow crust which would support him, or whether it would plunge down hip deep into the crevices below.

For the escaping Baalsrudven, finding any form of help was difficult and dangerous for all involved. Anyone he contacted could be a Nazi supporter or at least an informer. The few local Norwegians in the area had to protect their families and lives, since assisting a Nazi fugitive was punishable by death to the entire family, slaughter of all livestock, and destruction of the farmland. 

 

Yet many gladly helped him. Word had slowly spread through the desolate countryside that one man had escaped the Nazi sabeteur killings. Through this grapevine, Baalsrud became a secret hero to the quiet Norwegian farmers, a symbol of their national pride, strength, and resistance to the occupying Nazis. And so they helped in small, but vitally important ways, especially when several times Baalsrud was on the verge of death.

As one Norwegian farmer reflected:

At last it was something which he and only he could possibly do. If he could never do anything else to help in the war, he would have this to look back on now; and he meant to look back on it with satisfaction, and not with shame. He thanked God for sending him this chance to prove his courage....[He told Baalsrud] "If I live, you will live, and if they kill you I will have died to protect you."

Challenge after challenge presented itself to Baalsrud. Wearing only grimy rags of frozen clothes, starving, and suffereing from painful injuries and frostbite, Baalsrud continually astonishes us readers with his perserverence. Example after example of his courage, will, and seemingly endless supply of optimism drives this adventure tale forward, forcing readers to bundle up and continue following Baalsrud to his ultimate journey's end. Absolutely highly recommended.

[P.S. There is also a film called, The Twelfth Man (available on DVD and Amazon Prime) that is a breathtaking representative of the book, especially in portraying myriad of challenges and undying perserverence of Baalsrud ... and the unbearable, unrelenting cold.]

Happy reading. 

Fred

Other book recommendations
About The First Sentence Reader blog

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Rawicz, Slavomir. The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom.   

Incredible true story detailing the author's 1941 capture, prison life and eventual escape from a Soviet labor camp in Siberia. His route took him through China, Tibet, the Gobi Desert, and India, all while experiencing desperate cold, hunger, thirst, and fear of recapture. 

The Volunteer

Fairweather, Jack. The Volunteer: One Man', An Underground Army, and the Secret Mission to Destroy Auschwitz. New York: HarperCollins 2019. Print

First Sentences:

Witold Pilecki volunteered to be imprisoned in Auschwitz. 

Description:

Can there be a more chilling, compelling first sentence than this opening to Jack Fairweather's true history recounted in The Volunteer: One Man', An Underground Army, and the Secret Mission to Destroy Auschwitz?

This first sentence  is the ultimate baited hook to keep any reader reading. Who was this man, Witold Pilecki? What possessed him to voluntarily enter Auschwitz during World War II? What did he hope to accomplish? What happened to him? Did his plans succeed? All are important questions that pull readers deeper and deeper into this true account from history.

A few answers here. Witold Pilecki was a Polish farmer, a member of the Polish reserves who fought the Nazis after the invasion of their homeland in 1939. After the Polish army and people had been subdued and the country occupied, Pilecki joined a small underground resistance force. He and his team watched as the Nazis began to enforce Hitler's  emergency decree for the "indefinite detention or protective custody" of "real or imagined" enemies, including Catholics, Jews, and ethnic Germans.

The resistance noticed that neighbors were taken to a mysterious "labor camp" and rarely returned. That camp was Auschwitz, built in 1940 to hold these Polish "dissidents." Little information about this new camp was known at that time, and certainly no details were allowed to trickle to the outside world. So Pilecki's resistance group agreed it was vital to publicize what was going on inside Auschwitz to the Allied nations, hoping those troops would be shocked enough to bomb it as the heart of the Nazi cleansing movement, freeing the Polish people imprisoned there. Pilecki volunteered to enter Auschwitz to secure the information needed.

Once inside Auschwitz (it proved easy for Pilecki, a Polish man, to be captured), his plan was to recruit a resistance force inside the concentration camp, gather information, disrupt activities, and write accounts that could be smuggled to his fellow resistance fighters outside to be carried to embassies in the Allied countries.

And, of course, to somehow survive, and, if possible, escape to rejoin his Polish fighters.

The harrowing details Fairweather reveals of life in Auschwitz were taken from the recently recovered reports from Pilecki. Starvation, random selection of prisoners to be casually shot, gassings, mass burials, and other brutalities have probably never been more shockingly presented. I won't enumerate them here, but trust me much of the book is incredibly shocking as seen through Pilecki's eyes. It was incredibly depressing to read again and again of man's callous inhumanity to man.

Let none of you imagine that he will ever leave this place alive....The rations have been calculated so that you will only survive six weeks. Anyone who lives longer must be stealing, and anyone stealing will be sent to the penal company, where you won't live very long. -- [opening greeting from the camp commandant, SS-Obersturmfuhrer Fritz Seidler]

Pilecki's reports were painstakingly written and then somehow smuggled out of the camp and on to England to be read by Churchill, Roosevelt and others. These reports detailed the hourly atrocities, the evolution of Auschwitz from a labor camp to a highly-systematic mass killing site, and the potential value of an Allied bombing raid. But Pilecki's accounts were ignored and shelved for various political reasons, leaving Pilecki inside hell to wait for the Allied bombers that were not coming.

This is an important, historic book full of bravery as well as atrocities from the reality that was Auschwitz. Witold Pilecki is about the most courageous, fearless, patient man imaginable. His untiring devotion to the Polish cause and to destroy Auschwitz, his cleverness and leadership that inspire hope and pride among fellow prisoners is incredibly heartening. Despite all the Nazi horror depicted, the ignorance, the brutality, this is Pilecki's story and that of the people of Poland trying to survive and keep their country alive.

After all this sadness and loss of faith in man's nature, I felt the need to read Maya Angelou's poem of hope, "A Brave and Startling Truth." I needed to restore my faith that humans are not completely cruel and heartless, that there is good in us that will survive even the most atrocious of people and events. The poem is attached below in hopes that it will counterbalance the shock of the events of this powerful book and reinforce the reality that good people like Witold Pilecki will triumph over evil.

A Brave and Startling Truth - by Maya Angelou

Happy reading. 

Fred

Other book recommendations
About The First Sentence Reader blog

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Hillenbrand, Laura. Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption.   

True story of track star Louis Zamperini as he is shot down during World War II, drifted for weeks in a life raft, only to be "rescues" by enemy  Japanese who place him in a brutal prisoner-of-war camp. Shocking and inspiring in Zamperini's stoic resolve to survive whatever the world throws at him. Brilliantly written.

The Bookshop of the Broken Hearted

Hillman, Robert. The Bookshop of the Broken Hearted. New York: Putnam 2018. Print

First Sentences:

She didn't stay long as far as marriages go, just a year and ten months. Her note was brief, too:

       I'm leaving. Don't know what to say.    

                Love, Trudy. 

Description:

Here's an extremely well-written novel centering around a bookstore but has very little to do with books or the store itself. I just picked up Robert Hillman's The Bookshop of the Broken Hearted thinking I would be reading about the goings-on in a small shop with quirky characters, descriptions of books, and the evolution of like among readers.

But I was wrong ... and it turned out so much better for me.

Here we meet Tom Hope, recently-abandoned husband who farms in rural Australia, and Hannah, newly-arrived from Hungary who hires Tom to set up bookshelves in her new shop, the first bookshop ever in this sleepy town. No problem that Tom hasn't read a book in years. He and Hannah strike up a friendship as he works to make her bookshop habitable.

So many books. It was like looking at the blocks of the pyramids sitting on the sand on a daunting day one of construction.

But there is something about Hannah that is mysterious. Although she won't talk about her past, we eventually learn she is a Holocaust survivor who lost her family. Both she and Tom have broken hearts that slowly are somewhat eased through their friendship. But then Tom's wife returns, pregnant by another man. She throws everyone's life into uncertainty when after the birth of the baby she leaves again to join a religious cult, leaving Tom to raise the newborn baby Peter.

Will Trudy return ever? Will Tom and Hannah be able to console and mend together? And what about the boy Peter, torn between his mother and father?

Maybe this sounds like just another weepy romance novel, but au contraire. It is a lovely story, truly a high-quality read in all the important ways: writing, plot, character, and setting, with a very satisfying ending. Suffice to say the book is full of heartache, strength, thoughtfulness, unexpected passion, joy, and in the end even some satisfaction for characters and readers alike. 

I've been recommending this book to many people recently, so hope others will pick it up for a try. You won't be disappointed, and probably will find yourself fully engrossed in the lives of these gentle, sympathetic characters trying to deal with real sadness and get on with their lives in rural Australia.

Happy reading. 

Fred

Other book recommendations
About The First Sentence Reader blog

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Haruf, Kent. Plainsong.   

Two elderly bachelor farmers living on the outskirts of a small town in Colorado take in a pregnant teenager, completely changing their lives and routines forever. Wonderfully written. Highest recommendation.

Every Man a Hero

Lambert, Ray. Every Man a Hero: A Memoir of D-Day, the First Wave at Omaha Beach, and a World at War. New York: HarperCollins 2019. Print

First Sentences:

Colleville-sur-Mer is a picturesque village in northern France, blessed with a lovely beach on the English Channel....

I've seen it that way myself. But for me, a far different scene is never far from my mind. 

Description:

Ninety-eight-year-old Ray Lambert may be one of the last surviving American soldiers who landed at Normandy Beach on June 6, 1944. While normally not outgoing about his wartime experiences, he finally decided that the history of that day should be told from a first-hand account. Thus he wrote, along with co-author Jim DeFelice, the brilliant Every Man a Hero: A Memoir of D-Day, the First Wave at Omaha Beach, and a World at War.

For many years, I kept the story of that day to myself. Largely, this was because I chose to move on...I also felt my story was not worth telling. I landed at Omaha, but thousands did...I did what I was called to do...I was always an ordinary man...

In this compelling autobiography, U.S. Army Staff Sargent Ray Lambert takes us from his early days growing up on a farm in rural Alabama through his enlistment and training as a medic to his front-line landings at North Africa, Sicily, and finally Normandy, France. 

One hundred sixty thousand men, five thousand ships, and thirteen thousand airplanes took part in an assault that ultimately decided the war. It was one of the bloodiest days in one of the bloodiest conflicts mankind has ever fought.

His job at these sites was to be among the first to land on the beach, establish some sort of shelter (like a large rock) to act as a triage location, then plunge back into the water to drag injured soldiers to shore and the shelter. Back and forth he slogged, bullets whizzing around him or actually hitting him as he continued to aide incapacitated men.

Lambert gives some back story about army life, commanding officers, strategies, and the mindsets of an "ordinary" soldier. Lambert describes, in the terse sentences below, his feelings when facing the experienced, war-tested Germans for the first time, an enemy who "knew how to kill" and "weren't reluctant to do it."

One of the biggest factors, in my opinion, was our inexperience. Not only did we not really know war yet, we didn't know how to kill....It's knowledge you need to get into your bones, into your heart. It's a harsh thing, but without it, you and your friends are dead, your battle is lost, and what you came to fight for is forfeit.

Lambert was definitely a hero and leader in these historic events, winning a Silver Star and multiple Bronze Stars and Purple Hearts. At Normandy on D-Day, he admitted to saving over a dozen men, and almost died from wounds and having a landing craft ramp drop onto his head. Yet throughout the book he defers praise for his actions and repeatedly refers to "every man was a hero."

A lot of things can be forgiven in war; letting the guy next to you down isn't one of them.

We learn from Lambert about Bangalore torpedoes, ("long, slim pipes that contained explosives and were slipped in or under barbed wire, then exploded to clear a path"). We learn that GIs carried Browning Automatic Rifles, the first ever light-weight machine guns. 

And we watch through Lambert's eyes the actual events leading up to, during, and after the landing at Omaha Beach.. We feel his surprise when he and his thirty seasick fellow soldiers in the landing craft realize that the early parties sent to clear land and ocean mines as well as barbed wire had all been killed before they could do their job. They now understood they would be landing in heavily defended, explosive-ridden beaches. But they also found out that the dreaded major German artillery weapons were away from the beach that day being serviced and, once located by American troops, quickly destroyed.

It is a riveting account of a dreadful day fought by ordinary men trying to turn the course of the War. Your heart is definitely in your throat as the seconds tick away until the landing craft's ramp drop and everyone piles out into the freezing water under a hail of gunfire. You are almost there with Lambert as he describes the scenes through every sense. You can feel the pounding of explosions

...more physical than something thumping against your chest. It pounds your bones, rumbling through your organs, counter-beating your heart. Your skull vibrates. You feel the noise as if it's inside you.

It is a harrowing, thrilling, and gut-wrenching account. A must-read for anyone even remotely interested in the turning point of the War and the men who planned and carried out the fighting.

Every man on that beach was a hero. Each one braved incredible gunfire, artillery, mortar shells, obstructions, mines. Each man had his own story. This books tells mine.

Happy reading. 

Fred

Other book recommendations
About The First Sentence Reader blog

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Hochschild, Adam. To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918.   

Incredibly detailed, fascinating, horrifying, and inspiring history of World War I, the events and personalities that led the world into war, the battles and armies themselves, and the aftermath. Unforgettable. (previously reviewed here)

The Secret Life of Codebreakers

McKay, Sinclair. The Secret Lives of Codebreakers: The Men and Women Who Cracked the Enigma Code at Bletchley Park. New York: Plume. 2012. Print.

First Sentences:

Sarah Baring -- and her good friend Osla Henniker-Major -- received the summons by means of a terse telegram.

She remembers that it read: "You are to report to Station X at Bletchley Park, Buckinghamshire, in four days time. Your postal address is Box 111, c/o The Foreign Office. 

That is all you need to know."

Description:

Probably everyone knows of the super secret work of English codebreakers trying to crack the German "Enigma" at Bletchley Park 40 miles from London. But since the operation was deemed so secret that its existence was not made public until decades later, little is known of the actual work of these men and women vital to the War effort.

Enter Sinclair McKay and his absolutely fascinating close-up look at the Bletchley Park people and operations in his new book, The Secret Lives of Codebreakers: The Men and Women Who Cracked the Enigma Code at Bletchley Park. Through diaries, military records, historical accounts, and interviews with surviving Bletchley Park workers, McKay gathered insightful details about the entire operation from the formation of the Bletchley Park concept, to recruitment of puzzle-solving experts, to building the first "bombe" computer, and the effect the Park had on the war.

Secret messages from the Germans were easily obtained by the British as wireless transmission to navel vessels was the only means of communication. Unfortunately, the Germans used a coding machine, the Enigma, that was devilishly complex and changed its settings every 24 hours. Piles and piles of messages at the Park were intercepted, typed up, stared at, played with, and usually left unsolved for months.

But little by little, the workers began to see patterns from particular German message-senders, giving Park codebreakers a small key to understanding a few messages. An Enigma recovered from a sinking U-Boat revealed the inner details of the machine. With Turing's bombe computer that could check millions of possible combinations of number codes, translation was be vastly speeded. The decoded information from the Park was used to shorten the War by an estimated two years and saved millions of lives.

Behind the operation, McKay explores the personalities and everyday life of workers, insights that were previously hidden from the world. He paints a clear picture of the debutantes, college professors, factory workers, and others of various talents working in separate huts on individual steps in the decoding process. Every page of Codebreakers reveals some shocking, funny, or intriguing detail, such as:

People: In the face of a challenge like the Enigma keys and without, at least at first, the technology to be able to attack them mechanically, the Park would need as many original, quirky, lateral thinkers as it could get, and then give them as free a rein as possible.

Working conditions: Nothing...seemed less likely to house great matters than the ramshackle wooden building (its atmosphere nauseating at night when the blackout imprisoned the fumes from leaky coke-burning stoves) to which I reported...

Language requirements: One recruit was asked if she could speak Italian. "Only opera Italian," she replied. "Yes, that will do," she was told.

Withholding information: For as soon as Enigma was broken, it became utterly vital that the Germans should never suspect that this was the case. [Thus, the city of Coventry, England, was not evacuated prior to being bombed by Nazis even though Betchley Park has broken a message which reveaedl this upcoming raid].

Operation Ruthless: This was the brainchild of Ian Fleming, author of the James Bond spy novels. This plan was for him to lead a small team dressed as wounded German Air Force military intent on being rescued by a German boat. Once aboard the rescue boat, the team would kill all crew members, capture an Enigma machine, and sail the boat to England. [The plan was not deployed due to weather problems.]

D-Day: Without Betchley, the D-Day landings might well have been a catastrophic failure and the forces could have been thrown back into the sea.

Just one interesting detail and story after another. Social relationships, food, shopping, Wrens (women who tended the bombe computers), quirky personalities (Turing rode his broken-down bicycle while wearing a full gas mask for his allergies), and conflicts between different military organizations and the civilian Park workers all pull you deeper and deeper into understand the importance and uniqueness of Betchley Park and its operations. Highly recommended.

Happy reading. 


Fred

(See more recommended books)
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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Hodges, Andrew. Alan Turing: The Enigma

The book that inspired the Benedict Cumberbatch movie, this thick tome delves deeply into the secret inner workings of Bletchley Park and the codebreakers, particularly focusing on the genius Alan Turing.

The Winter Fortress

Bascomb, Neal. The Winter Fortress. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2016. Print.

First Sentences:

In a staggered line, the nine saboteurs cut across the mountain slope. 

Instinct, more than the dim light of the moon, guided the young men....Dressed in white camouflage suits over their British Army uniforms, the men looked like phantoms haunting the woods.

Description:

Raise your hands if you have ever heard of "heavy water." Here's a hint: it is vital to the production of atomic bombs and therefore the key ingredient in Neal Bascomb's account of the real-life World War II undercover operation in The Winter Fortress. 

Heavy water is ultra-distilled water that is painstakingly refined down a few drops with unique qualities. In the late 1930s, no one at the Vemork, Norway heavy water plant the really knew what to do with the interesting product they produced except to let scientists take small samples to experiment with and possibly find a use. But in 1940 when Nazi Germany requests from Vemork not a few drops of heavy water but two tons of the stuff, many workers at the facility suspect the Germans have found a military use for this liquid.

Turns out heavy water is a key component in the stabilization and detonation of the experimental atomic bomb being worked on the in United State and now, apparently, in Germany. When Germany overruns Norway and takes over the Vemork plant, and then vastly increases heavy water production, their intentions are confirmed. If the Germans are using it for an atomic weapon, they must be stopped or at least slowed until the American/British team in New Mexico can achieve their own bomb.

The plant must be destroyed by Allies. But a bombing raid would destroy many people in the nearby town. And the distillation tanks are heavily protected deep inside the mountain fortress/plant in an area unlikely to be damaged by bombs.

The plant destruction therefore requires an undercover job to be secretly carried out by the Norwegian local resistance with training by British Special Operations. Discovery of their mission would mean severe repercussions to the local families who help them, so the planning, training, and eventual mission are limited to a handful of Norwegians. Families are not even told of the work these ordinary husbands and fathers are undertaking.

The tension is unbelievable as, step by step, this team of Norwegian locals acquires vital information smuggled out of the plant, undergoes commando training in England, and makes detailed plans to take on this inaccessible fortress ... and hopefully get out alive. Then they wait for good weather, week after week, knowing the success or failure of the team would turn the tide of the War by determining which side would create the bomb first. 

Absolutely riveting reading about a mission I knew nothing about, yet one that changed the balance of power. I also learned about the dedication of each and every person in Norway to do whatever they could to thwart the hated Germans occupying their country. A truly gripping, uplifting, tension-filled account of people taking it upon themselves to do whatever it takes to frustrate and defeat their enemy.  

Happy reading. 


Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

MacLean, Alistair. The Guns of Navarone

Fictional account of a team of saboteurs on a mission to destroy an important German gun installation. Thrilling, nerve-wracking, taut, and unexpected, this novel is one of my favorites by a man who can really write thriller action plots.

The Japanese Lover

Allende, Isabel. The Japanese Lover. New York: Atria. 2015. Print.

First Sentences:

When Irina Brazili began working at Lark House in 2010, she was twenty-three years old but already had few illusions about life.

Since the age of fifteen she had drifted from one job, one town, to another. She could not have imagined she would find a perfect niche for herself in that senior residence, or that over the next three years she would come to be as happy as in her childhood, before fate took a hand.

Description:

Sometimes a book I had no intention of pursuing grabs me and won't let go. It may have all the warning signs: "too romantic," "a woman's book," "no action." All these excuses soon didn't matter for this particular book as author Isabel Allede slowly, inexorably pulled me into her newest novel, The Japanese Lover. And I found it to be right up my alley: great characters, exquisite writing, and a story of persistent love over many decades. Yes, I am a romantic and occasionally am absorbed by an enduring love story such as this.

Covering over 70 years, The Japanese Lover tells the stories of two women: Irina, a young woman trying to hide from her mysterious past, and Alma who is old and living her dream with a secret lover she has known since her childhood. The two women meet in a home for the elderly where Alma lives and Irina works.

[Irina's] secret must be her ability to listen to the same story a thousand times over as if she were hearing it for the first time, all those tales the old folks keep repeating to accommodate the past and create an acceptable self-portrait, erasing remorse and extolling their real or imagined virtues. Nobody wants to end their life with a banal past.

Alma hires Irina to be her secretary to organize Alma's mementos and scrapbooks as well as her daily routines. Soon Irina is uncovering pieces of Alma's earlier years of wealth, travel, and relationships. She begins to pick up hints about a mysterious Japanese lover from Alma's past and possibly even her present. But Irina is reluctant to confront Alma as Irina has secrets of her own life and loves that she prefers to keep secret. 

Moving easily between the past and present for each of the women, Allende slowly unfolds two unique lives, each filled with abandonment, privilege, love, insecurity, and decisions about relationships that carry on into the present.

Maybe this sounds too soft, too cloying, too "something" for many readers. But I enjoyed it and read it quickly to find out what happened to these women and their loves. Maybe this story is not for everyone, but for me I was hopelessly involved from the first pages to the last. A lovely, complex tale of family, relationships, and strong love over the ages, with all its rewards and disappointments. 

Very few old folk are happy ... It's the most fragile and difficult stage of life, more so than childhood, because it grows worse day by day, and there is no future other than death.

Happy reading. 


Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

____________________

If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Haruf, Kent. Our Souls at Night

Wonderful story of two elderly people who seek out a relationship of friendship and comfort with each other despite the disapproval of friends and family. (previously reviewed here)

81 Days Below Zero

Murphy, Brian. 81 Days Below Zero: The Incredible Survival Story of a World War II Pilot in Alaska's Frozen Wilderness. New York: De Capo. 2015. Print.

First Sentences:

On a morning just above zero, a pilot with bed-rumpled hair hurried through tunnels under the Alaskan snow.

Description:

I relish survival stories, especially those that pit one person alone against overwhelming forces seeking to destroy him at every turn. The drive of that person to keep going and overcome both the tiny and major problems faced always strike a chord with me. These tales make me wonder how well would I have done in a similar situation, and bring me to the conclusion I probably would have died in the first few days. That the story's major character survives restores my faith in the ingenuity of humans and maybe even improves my will to press on in daily life.

Brian Murphy in 81 Days Below Zero: The Incredible Survival Story of a World War II Pilot in Alaska's Frozen Wilderness, tells the true story of First Lieutenant Leon Crane
who parachuted out of his doomed plane over the frozen landscape of Alaska in 1943. He and his crew of "Cold Nose Boys" (military fliers) were performing a routine test of a B-24 bomber when the plane spun out of control and headed straight down. Crane was able to parachute out, but the fates of the other crewmen was unknown to him. The plane burst into flames upon impact as Crane watched from his own landing area several miles away. 

Realizing he had been off course and unable to radio their position, Crane begins walking, regretting that he had pulled off his gloves on board the aircraft. At temperatures ranging from -20 to -50 degrees, frostbite immediately became his first real problem.

Armed with the parachute for warmth and a few matches, Crane follows the frozen river, drinking the seeping water at the edges before it freezes, but unable to find any food. He is completely lost, but feels that following a river might bring him to people, even if they are by his estimate, over 100 miles away. How long can he survive without food, sub-zero temperatures, and no assistance?

What follows is the gripping and challenging story of Crane's plodding hike, his encounters with death, and his narrow escapes that make him wiser for the next obstacle faced. All this is set in an environment where the temperature rarely gets above -20 degrees. 

Besides Crane's struggles, Author Murphy describes the history of the Alaskan area of the crash, including the gold rush as well the true purpose of the armed forces stationed there (preparing in 1944 for a major invasion of Japan). Using records, letters, and news articles, Murphy ably describes the feelings of the Ladd Air Base as well as the strength of the families of the lost airmen in their dogged determination to locate these men.

Crane's will, his cleverness, and his determination give us ordinary people the hope that we too, like him, could at least try to calmly, rationally overcome the terrible hand he has been dealt.

Read it in front of a fire, covered with a blanket and a cup of hot tea in your hand. You will still be shivering, guaranteed.

Happy reading. 

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

____________________

If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Paulsen, Gary. Hatchet

Teenage city boy crash lands in the wilds of Canada and must learn how to survive in the wilderness. See also the Hatchet sequels, especially Brian's Winter. 

Weir, Andy. The Martian

One astronaut, blown away and by a Martian storm, is left behind on Mars and presumed dead. But he isn't and must figure out how to survive, communicate with NASA and his crew, and ultimately escape. Not easy tasks, but he is resourceful in the face of overwhelming odds. Fantastic. (previously reviewed here) 

Philbrick, Natianiel. In the Heart of the Sea

True story of the Essex, the nineteenth century whaling boat that was rammed and sunk by a whale, sending its surviving crew into three longboats to attempt to sail 3,000 miles to the nearest port. (previously reviewed here) 

Elephant Company

Croke, Vicki Constantine. Elephant Company: The Inspiring Story of an Unlikely Hero and the Animals Who Helped Him Save Lives in World War II. New York: Random House. 2014. Print.

First Sentences:

Deep in the jungle-clad hills of northwest Burma, close to the border of the Indian state of Manipur, Billy Williams, delirious with fever, began to regain  consciousness.

Description:

There is always a magnificence about elephants whether seen in a zoo, circus, at Disneyland on the Jungle Ride, or in a documentary on television. But to actually walk with elephants in their natural habitat is something I imagine as an almost overpowering experience. Make that interacting with a large number of elephants and there is sensory overload for me.

Such is the feeling I had reading Vicki Constantine Croke's Elephant Company: The Inspiring Story of an Unlikely Hero and the Animals Who Helped Him Save Lives in World War II. In it she describes the elephant forces working in the teak industry in Burma just after World War I under the direction of one particular man, Billy Williams. 

Because the country had few roads and railways, an army of elephants would drag the harvested logs to waterways...The rivers of Burma with their vast network of feeder streams make possible the economical extraction, sometimes over distances of 1,200 miles and more, or teak and other waterborne forest produce to the sawmilling and shipping centres of Rangoon and Moulmein.

Williams, in 1920, received a position with the Bombay Burmah Trading Corporation Ltd. to learn how to oversee the teak operations and, of course, manage the working elephants deep in the forests of Burma. A World War I veteran serving in India, North Africa, Egypt, and Afghanistan, Williams had become hooked on the beauty, isolation, and the wild animals of Burma and therefore answered the logging company's recruitment ad to live in this country.

Imagine his first morning when seven elephants appeared for inspection before going out to work. They were immense at over nine feet at their shoulders, quietly stamping their feet, exploring Williams with their trunks, and making low humming noises to each other. 

Seven elephants materialized a the edge of the clearing. They were paraded into camp, a driver sitting on each animal's neck. Huge as they were, they made a hushed advance on broad, cushioned feet. It was just as Kipling had described -- elephants walking "as silently as a cloud rolls out of the mouth of a valley."

The book details Williams' daily work with these elephants, training them with love and physical affection rather than the traditional beatings. Elephants were given the freedom to roam the jungles at night away from the camps, with their large bells around their neck to signal their mahouts (rider/caregivers) where they were so they could be collected each morning for work. Fascinating!

Williams even had a favorite tusker, the giant Bandoola which was the leader of the other elephants as well as the first elephant calf to be trained by Williams' new methods. Bandoola saved Williams' life by carrying him across an impossibly raging river to get medical help for the feverish Williams as recounted in the opening sentences.

When World War II and the Japanese invasion of Southeast Asia threatened the teak loggers and their families, Williams organized the elephants and mahouts as transport to evacuate entire camps and populations to safety. Losing the trained elephants to the Japanese would have been devastating as these animals made movement and road-building possible in the tangled jungles. Without elephants, progress by the Japanese across Burma was impossibly slow, leading to their eventual defeat in this region.

I loved the adventure, the exploration of the jungles, the personalities and culture of the elephants themselves, and the stoic determination of Elephant Bill throughout his years in Burma. A great picture of an era gone by and the magnificent animals and men who tamed the teak forests.

Happy reading. 

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Helfer, Ralph. Modoc: The True Story of the Greatest Elephant That Ever Lived

True story of seven decades in the life of a remarkable elephant and the boy who bonded with him, from early life as a circus attraction, to surviving and saving the boy during the sinking of a boat, to work in teak forests and eventual stardom in an American circus.