02 Nov Frozen in Time
(2013) Frozen in Time: An Epic Story of Survival and a Modern Quest for Lost Heroes of World War II is the true story of the heroic efforts to rescue airmen lost in the frozen vastness of Greenland.
I didn’t read Frozen in Time … I listened to the audiobook, and to my surprise it was read by the author himself, Mitchell Zuckoff. That made the story more personal. As I began to get into the story I thought, this is so similar to Lost in Shangri-La, another book I listened to earlier this year. Well, duh … both books are by the same author! As he explains, he loves to find an obscure news article, then dig out the true story. I think he also likes them to be in obscure places … first New Guinea, now Greenland.
After I was several chapters in I began to think, “Wasn’t Bernt Balchen there? Go find him!” As I have studied the history of Scandinavia during World War II, Bernt Balchen has become a hero to me. He met my parents in Stockholm and was very much involved with OSS activities there. I remembered that he had been involved in Greenland rescues, and when I got to Chapter 10, yep … he was a huge part of this rescue effort too!
I loved the book. Not everything turned out the way I wanted it to but thankfully (and here is a spoiler!) more than half our men were saved.
Alongside the 1941 story, the author related the efforts being made to locate and eventually recover the remains of one of the rescue planes and the three passengers aboard. Mitchell Zuckoff went to Greenland along with the team and was there when the exact site was identified.
A blog about the recovery mission …
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