Adrift: A True Story of Tragedy in the Icy Atlantic and the One Who Lived to Tell About It

In Adrift, Brian Murphy recounts the journey of the packet ship John Rutledge from its navigation down the Mersey River to the ice fields that sank four ships in 1856. Nearly 1,000 souls died in three months, with commercial losses in the millions of dollars. The Irish immigrants and crew on board the Rutledge were all lost, save one man. This is his story.

I love a good adventure story, and if there are ships and ice involved, I'm all in. I was also interested in reading Brian Murphy's Adrift because it is about Irish immigrants, who in 1856 had scrimped and saved for their passage, hopeful they would find a better life in America. My own Irish ancestors left their homeland for England, a much shorter sea journey. But the reasons for leaving their homeland would have been the same, as well as their poverty.

The book is based on the story of Thomas Nye, a New Bedford maritime sailor who was twenty-two when he shipped on the packet ship John Rutledge out of Liverpool. The ship carried over 100 Irish passengers, bound for New York. 

In 1903, just two years before his death, a journalist interviewed Nye who told the story of the sinking of the Rutledge, his nine days asea watching the other survivors succumb to the elements and dehydration, and his providential rescue.

Murphy takes us on Nye's journey, recreating the events, drawing from Nye's writings, ships logs, and newspaper accounts. We are there when the ship strikes a berg and during the launching of the lifeboats. We experience Nye watching as his fellow passengers in an open board are driven to desperate measures and die until only he is left.

It is a tale of harrowing adventure, but also a study of human nature in desperate circumstances when conventional morality and social norms are washed away. There is no cannibalism involved, thankfully, for as Murphy shares, sometimes that did happen.

Reforms to improve maritime safety did not advance until the 1912 sinking of the Titanic. (Some things never change: the lives of impoverished immigrant families did not spur safety advances, but the deaths of some of the richest men in the world did.)

As climate change accelerates the calving of Greenland's ice sheet, more icebergs will clog shipping lanes. Today we have communication between ships and ship and shore, and knowledge of where the ice fields are.

Murphy is a journalist with the Washington Post and the author of three books.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Adrift: A True Story of Tragedy on the Icy Atlantic and the One Who Lived to Tell about It
by Brian Murphy
Da Capo Press
Pub Date 04 Sep 2018
ISBN: 9780306902000
Hardcover $27.00 (USD)

Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Eric Larson

On a beautiful morning with a calm sea, it took eighteen minutes for the Lusitania to sink.

Of all the stories of the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915, it is the image of a woman giving birth in the frigid waters that haunts me. And how one surviving passenger, a child, always carried the fear that the woman was his pregnant mother. I am angry to think how nothing was done to protect this family. Instead, information was withheld with secret hopes that American deaths would bring the United States into WWI.

There are certain synopsis of history that we hear over and over again, easily memorized history in one sentence. People who lived the history didn't need more to conjure up stories and memories about it. The one-line history gets passed on through the media or in books or in the classroom to following generations who have no further information. Part of my reading life is finding out the story behind these snippets.


I knew the passenger ship Lusitania was sunk by the Germans, and there were Americans on board, and that people were appalled. I heard that the sinking brought America into WWI. I vaguely thought the ship was American with mostly American passengers. I had heard that Elbert Hubbard was among those who died in the shipwreck.

I chose to read Eric Larson's Dead Wake through Blogging for Books because I enjoyed his Devil in the White City and because I wanted to learn more about the Lusitania.

It was interesting, then tense, then harrowing, then enraging, and finally enlightening. Larson is a masterful story teller.

We get to know the passengers on that fatal voyage--the charming, the famous, the wealthy, the captain and crew. And we also get to know the U-20 commander, his dedication and skill, and how the horror of seeing the disaster he wrought upset him but did not deter him from doing his duty for his country. Meanwhile, President Wilson was a broken man after the loss of his wife, detached and depressed until he meets the vibrant and sympathetic widow who revives his hopes of love and companionship.

Larson exposes several myths of the sinking: the early belief that two torpedoes hit the ship, and that Capt. Turner was at fault.

Why wasn't Cunard warned about the U-20's previous hits and location? Why didn't Britain offer protection to the Lusitania? Why was Captain Turner not warned to take the safer northern route?

Churchill had written a letter to the Board of Trade commenting that it was important to attract "neutral shipping to our shores, in the hopes of especially embroiling the United States with Germany." The British military were decoding every message sent by U-20 and knew where it was.
The Lusitania was in the right place at the right time, a sitting duck. And yet so many things could have prevented the tragedy.

As for the revision of my received history: The Lusitania was a British ship of the Cunard line, like the Titanic. Like the Titanic it was thought to be too big to sink, plus it was so fast it could outrun a sub. 114 American citizens lost their lives, including millionaire playboy Alfred Vanderbuilt who died a hero's death assisting other passengers to safety. The ship was carrying secret military cargo. It was sunk by a German submarine. It took two more years before America entered the war and meantime the Germans stepped back from attacking passenger ships for fear of involving America.

*****

A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.  Elbert Hubbard.

That quotation was in my Sixth grade English textbook. I memorized it and took it to heart. It was all I knew about Elbert Hubbard for a long while.

When my grandfather Lynne O. Ramer passed I was given his library. It included a complete set of Hubbard's Roycroft set Little Journeys into the Homes of the Great. The series was published in 1916 after Hubbard's death. I have carted it around for 40 years. My grandfather collected books in the 1920s, even though he had little money and was working in the kitchen to pay his way through Susquehanna College (now University). Hubbard was one of the most famous men in America when Gramps was growing up. When my grandfather was ten Hubbard set sail on the Lusitania.

There are only two respectable ways to die; One is of old age. the other is by accident. All disease is indecent. Elbert Hubbard

Elbert and his wife Alice retreated to a Boat Deck room and closed the door. He followed his own advice: "We are here now, some day we shall go. And when we go we would like to go gracefully." Their bodies were never identified.

Learn more about the Lusitania at

http://www.rmslusitania

https://wwionline.org/articles/complex-case-rms-lusitania/

Learn more about the book at

http://eriklarsonbooks.com/the-books/dead-wake/

http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/98118/dead-wake-by-erik-larson/9780307408877/

http://www.npr.org/books/titles/390474945/dead-wake-the-last-crossing-of-the-lusitania

I received a free book through Blogging for Books in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Shipwrecks and Rescues at Big Sable Point

We lived along Lake Michigan for seven years. Summer along the shore is lovely. The sand cliffs and beaches facing the blue lake are beautiful.

sand dunes south of Ludington, MI

Mears State Park beach at Pentwater, MI

Living along the lake all year round means enduring wicked winters. We had 130+ inches of snow our last year in Pentwater; 93 inches our first year in Montague was considered a light winter. The blowing wind and surf is a continual background noise. 

We tried going to the beach during a storm. The sand blew into our nostrils and mouth and down to the roots of our hair. Once was enough. See a YouTube video of waves at Ludington here and videos of lake storms here and here.

Lake Michigan near Pentwater during Hurricane Sandy, early October

Reading Storms & Sand: The Story of Shipwrecks and the Big Sable Point Coast Guard Station by Stephen, Grace, and Joel Truman I remembered those few minutes we spent along a stormy coast and I pitied and admired the men who endured truly harsh storms.

Big Sable Point sits on a jut of land--actually sand dunes-- a two mile walk north of Ludington. Inland and behind is Hamlin Lake, a resort area. The lake was enlarged when lumber baron Charles Mears built a wood dam in 1856. His lumber mill stored the wood in the lake, which was then shunted downriver to Lake Michigan were it was loaded for shipping. When the dam broke, the life saving station men arrived to rebuild.

All along West Michigan the lumber barons cut down the old forest growth, the tall White Pines, and ships took the lumber south to build Chicago and north and through the lake to Buffalo. A hundred years ago the forests were pretty well lumbered out in the state.

But during the lumber boom the lake was teaming with ships. And with sand bars and bad weather, ice and snow, mechanical breakdowns, and captains trying for one more late season run, there was a desperate need for life saving stations along the Lake Michigan shore.

The Truman's book presents the history of the Big Sable life saving station and the men who served there with illustrative stories of their rescues. We follow the men's careers and get to know them.

Someone had to patrol the beaches day and night, in all weather. Someone had to look from the watch tower, peering into fog, rain or snow, looking for a light or flag signally distress. The men needed to bring boats to the water's edge when heavy ice and snow deeply buried the shore. In early days the men oared the boats out.

We read about distressed ships with men clinging to the mast rigging in brutal weather. For hours. In plain and subtle language, the stories reveal true heroes, men 'doing their duty' in dogged persistence, regardless of their own safety.

We learn how technology and improvements made the work quicker, but nothing could change the irresistible power of nature's fury.

The life saving stations were rolled into the Coast Guard. As ship technology changed there were fewer accidents and less need for the life saving stations and they were closed. Today the surviving stations and lighthouses have become tourist attractions, enjoyed for their scenic beauty. The Trumans have reminded us of the tragedies and triumphs of their forgotten history.

I received a free book from the author in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Storms & Sand: A Story of Shipwrecks and the Big Sable Point Coast Guard Station
Stephen, Grace, and Joel Truman
Pine Woods Press
$29.95
ISBN: 978-0-9854636-9-4

Swiss Family Robinson

The Swiss Family Robinson

Johann David Wyss (1743 - 1818) was a Swiss pastor who wanted to teach his sons specific character strengths, including self-reliance. Wyss died leaving a disjointed collection of stories. The book was arranged and completed by Wyss's son Johann Rudolf Wyss (1781 – 1830).

The main character is a pastor who with his family were on their way to New Guinea when a storm over took their ship. They become stranded on a deserted island, but after devising ways to remove the animals and every useful item from the ship, they recreate civilization.

Since its initial publication in 1812 it has been translated and rewritten many times and was the basis for a Disney film and a television series.

I read the book several times when a girl and loved the Disney movie. Overall, this is a can do, positive, upbeat book. The characters never met a disaster or crisis they cannot handle. They seem to have read every book ever written on exploration, primitive cultures and their material world and industry, and every book on flora and fauna of the known universe.

Among the prickly stalks of the cactus and aloes, I perceived a plant with large pointed leaves, which I knew to be the karata. I pointed out to the boys its beautiful red flowers; the leaves are an excellent application to wounds, and thread is made from the filaments, and the pith of the stem is used by the savage tribes for tinder.

"How happy it is for us," said she [the other], "that you have devoted yourself to reading and study. In our ignorance we might have passed this treasure, without suspecting its value."

One problem after another is solved by the resourceful father and sons. Mother suffers a fall from the treehouse, one son suffers a serious burn and another son is shot, a hurricane destroys their fruit trees, and mom and a son are abducted by cannibals from the next island over. All crises are met head on and solved. Dad even makes rubber boots!

Warning: wild boar coming!

The second half of the book concerns Father and his older sons returning to find mother and the younger son missing. They fear that cannibals have abducted them. The menfolk sail to an island and after many adventures with 'savages' and a priest they are reunited.

Goodreads comments on the book are mostly negative, especially because the boys sometimes go around shooting animals willy-nilly.

The next morning, Ernest had used my bow, which I had given him, very skilfully; bringing down some dozens of small birds, a sort of ortolan, from the branches of our tree, where they assembled to feed on the figs. This induced them all to wish for such a weapon...I gave my boys leave to kill as many ortolans as they chose, for I knew that, half-roasted, and put into casks, covered with butter, they would keep for a length of time, and prove an invaluable resource in time of need.

We are today repelled by the sense that all creation is there for mankind to use. We know what happened to many species and to our environment as an outcome of that sad attitude towards creation.

We know that ostriches, wild boar, bears and penguins do not live side by side not to speak of kangaroos, pineapples, water buffalo and a multitude of other things the Robinsons find on their island. It is pretty absurd by today's knowledgeable readers.

The book is pre-novel in the way Robinson Crusoe is, episodic and without depth of character, lots of life instruction and little sense of plot. Wyss was to have told the book as a series of stories or tales.

Prayers for safe delivery

There is a strong religious ground to the novel, and 18^th c values are clear. Mom is revered and loved, a paragon of virtue. Father is a fount of wisdom, strength, and knowledge and clearly is in charge. The family always gives thanks to God their preserver, defender, and guide. The sons represent different personalities and are accepted and esteemed for the gifts God gave to them. Education and self-improvement are esteemed. And in all things they hold strong to their faith in God.

Our path became every instant more intricate, from the amazing quantity of creeping plants which choked the way, and obliged us to use the axe continually. The heat was excessive, and we got on slowly, when Ernest, always observing, and who was a little behind us, cried out, "Halt! a new and important discovery!" We returned, and he showed us, that from the stalk of one of the creepers we had cut with our axe, there was issuing clear, pure water. It was the liane rouge, which, in America, furnishes the hunter such a precious resource against thirst. Ernest was much pleased; he filled a cocoa-nut cup with the water, which flowed from the cut stalks like a fountain, and carried it to his mother, assuring her she might drink fearlessly; and we all had the comfort of allaying our thirst, and blessing the Gracious Hand who has placed this refreshing plant in the midst of the dry wilderness for the benefit of man.

Another aspect that upsets moderns sensibilities is the attitude towards the local indigenous people, the 'savages' who are just becoming Christianized. Just the use of the word savage sets one's teeth on edge.

So why did I love this book as a girl? It is clearly a 'boy's' book, with many adventures and more knowledge about how to identify and prepare edible vegetative matter than any fiction book ought to have in it.

1. It starts with a shipwreck---a storm has raged for six days already, and on the seventh day the ship strikes a rock. What can be more exciting than that?

2. Father and Mother are models of strength and courage. Every child believes their parents are--or wants to trust that their parents are--strong protectors they can rely on.

"Take courage," cried I, [the father] "there is yet hope for us; the vessel, in striking between the rocks, is fixed in a position which protects our cabin above the water, and if the wind should settle to-morrow, we may possibly reach the land."

This assurance calmed my children, and as usual, they depended on all I told them; they rejoiced that the heaving of the vessel had ceased, as, while it lasted, they were continually thrown against each other. My wife, more accustomed to read my countenance, discovered my uneasiness; and by a sign, I explained to her that I had lost all hope. I felt great consolation in seeing that she supported our misfortune with truly Christian resignation.

"Let us take some food," said she; "with the body, the mind is strengthened; this must be a night of trial."

3. They have adventures, suffer hardships, and are pressed to solve huge problems but prevail and flourish. Wish fulfillment! Illusions of superhuman ability! What child can resist!

4. The boys all have a special pet animal. They get to ride animals. They have two dogs. Kids love animals.

5. They live in a treehouse! They build a grotto in a cave. They live in a tent. What could be grander?

6. The boys are respected for their contributions to the welfare of the family. The older boys are relied upon to do adult work.

I don't expect to ever read Swiss Family Robinson again. But after rereading Robinson Crusoe, and as I have been revisiting childhood favorite books, it seemed fitting.

For an overview on the author, developent of the novel, and influences see:

http://www.jimandellen.org/montolieu/robinsonsuisse.html

Project Gutenberg's free ebook with illustrations can be found at:

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/11703/11703-h/11703-h.htm