| The Raft Lib/E: The Courageous Struggle of Three Naval Airmen Against the Sea Contributor(s): Trumbull, Robert (Author), Gardner, Grover (Read by) |
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ISBN: 0786199326 ISBN-13: 9780786199327 Publisher: Blackstone Publishing OUR PRICE: $36.00 Product Type: Compact Disc - Other Formats Published: December 1998 Annotation: On the afternoon of January 16, 1942, three men boarded a TBD Devastator aircraft -- a low-wing, single-engine torpedo-bomber -- for an antisubmarine patrol flight. Although it was to be a relatively short flight, they became lost. When the fuel ran low, they decided to ditch into the Pacific. Before they could get their life raft to inflate, however, the plane sank beneath them, carrying most of the survival gear down with it. Thirty-four days later the raft landed on Puka Puka, a New Zealand governed atoll in the Danger Islands, having meandered 1,200 miles! The story of the voyage, with few resources except courage and indomitable human spirit, is not only inspiring listening, but a tribute to the human species and its will to survive. The miraculous escapes, especially the passage over a killer reef and the reaching of safety only a day ahead of a typhoon, also suggest that someone was looking over them! |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - History | Military - World War Ii - History | Military - Aviation - History | Military - Naval |
| Dewey: 940.548 |
| Physical Information: 0.98" H x 6.57" W x 7" (0.92 lbs) |
| Themes: - Chronological Period - 1900-1949 - Chronological Period - 1940's |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: "The sinking of the plane was like a magician's trick. It was there and then it was gone, and there was nothing left in our big, wet, darkening world but the three of us and a piece of rubber that was not yet a raft." In 1942, three men on an antisubmarine patrol flight became lost and pitched into the Pacific. The plane sank beneath them, carrying most of the survival gear down with it. For thirty-four scorching days and shivering nights, they faced the ocean terrors on a four-by-eight-foot rubber raft. They had no water, food, compass, or paddles--only their will to survive. But by feats of super endurance, they made their way to the South Sea isle of Puka Puka, having meandered 1,200 miles. |
Contributor Bio(s): Trumbull, Robert: - Robert Trumbull was born in Chicago in 1912 and graduated from the University of Washington at Seattle. He worked as a reporter for the Honolulu Advertiser from 1933 to 1943 but began writing for the New York Times in 1941, serving during World War II as the Times' war correspondent in the Pacific theater until 1945. The US Navy awarded him the Asiatic-Pacific Theater Ribbon for his wartime reports. After the war he continued writing for the Times, serving as a foreign correspondent, chief correspondent, and bureau chief in such places as Japan, the Philippines, South and Southeast Asia, Tokyo, China, Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific islands, and Canada. As well as contributing articles on Asian and Pacific affairs to Encyclopedia Americana, Reader's Digest, Saturday Review, and New York Times Magazine, he was the author of ten nonfiction books. For his The Scrutable East: A Correspondent's Report on Southeast Asia, he won the Overseas Press Club's Cornelius Ryan Award in 1964, an award given yearly for best nonfiction book on international affairs. Gardner, Grover: -Grover Gardner is an award-winning narrator with over eight hundred titles to his credit. Named one of the Best Voices of the Century and a Golden Voice by AudioFile magazine, he has won three prestigious Audie Awards, was chosen Narrator of the Year for 2005 by Publishers Weekly, and has earned more than thirty Earphones Awards. |