Ethel Bell was a recently widowed missionary living in New York City in 1938. She had two children, Robert in third grade and Mary in fifth grade. Despite the recent death of her husband George, Ethel was determined to continue her missionary work in West Africa. The Bells left New York on the Cunard liner, Laconia in June of 1938 and sailed to Abidjan in Ivory Coast. They then travelled to the new missionary post in Bouake. As there was no school there, Mary and Robert were driven seven hundred miles to Mamou, Guinea where they boarded with a French-speaking couple and attended school.
In August 1939, Robert and Mary returned to school in Mamou, after the summer holidays. In May 1940, France surrendered to the Nazis meaning that most of France and its colonies in West Africa were suddenly under Nazi control. Ivory Coast and Guinea were soon filled with Nazi soldiers. At this time in the war, the United States was neutral. In an effort to keep it that way, Germany, Italy and Japan signed the Tripartite Pact which stated that should the United States enter the war, all three countries would retaliate. This meant that the Bells were safe remaining in West Africa: Mrs. Bell remained in Ivory Coast and the Bell children continued their schooling in Guinea. But with the bombing of Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941, the United States entered the war. This meant being an American citizen in Nazi-controlled West Africa was risky.
Mrs. Bell had her children return to Bonake and she began to look for passage out of Ivory Coast. However, she was not allowed by leave by the authorities. Eventually with the help of a French consular official, Mrs. Bell and her children were able to flee to the British colony of Gold Coast (Ghana). The next step was to return to the United States. Unable to obtain seats on any planes leaving North Africa, she began looking to leave by cargo ship. She was successful in gaining passage on the West Lashaway, a freighter loaded with cocoa beans, palm oil and fifty million dollars worth of Congolese gold! The West Lashaway, captained by Benjamin Bogdan, left Takoradi Harbor on August 15, 1942, sailing south of Ivory Coast, and west of Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Now that Germany and the United States were at war, U-boats began prowling the waters off the east coast of the country, sinking ships. The U.S. Navy did little to protect merchant shipping until several months into the attacks.
Ten days into their voyage, Captain Bogdan received a message telling him to travel northward towards Saint Thomas in the British Virgin Islands. Bogdan had no way of knowing if this radio message was legitimate. And he did not know that U-boats had recently destroyed nine ships near Brazil and Trinidad. Based on his experience as a captain, he ignored the message.
AT 2:31PM the next day, the West Lashaway was hit by two torpedoes. The Bells with life jackets on, attempted to get into a boat but the rapidly sinking ship pulled them down with it. When they surfaced, they along with some passengers, crewmen and Captain Bogdan had survived. Forty-two survivors were now spread out on four rafts, three of which were damaged. They also had emergency rations that included drinking water, crackers, chocolate and tins of pemmican.
After five days of drifting, Captain Bogdan ordered the four rafts to be separated. After being separated, the rafts quickly drifted out of sight of one another. On September 7, Earl Koonz died and on September 9, Captain Bogdan died from his injuries. It would not be until September 18 at 9:50AM that radar on the HMS Vimy would spot the raft. Initially the crew of the Vimy thought the raft was a U-boat but as they got closer they realized it was a raft crammed with seventeen people. The survivors were found by a device that had been over one hundred years in the making.
Discussion
Radar and the Raft weaves together two stories, one, a story of the struggle to survive on the sea and the other a story of a scientific development that involved some of the greatest scientific minds over a period of one hundred and fifty years. These two stories come together with the rescue of seventeen people on a wooden raft, lost in the Atlantic Ocean.
Author Jeff Lantos engages his readers by opening with the story of widowed missionary Ethel Bell and her two children who move to West Africa just prior to World War II. It follows them as they manage to escape from Nazi-controlled West Africa as war engulfs the world, their journey across the ocean and then their struggle to survive for weeks in the Atlantic after the sinking of their ship by a German U-boat.
Interspersed between the chapters of their story is that of the series of scientific discoveries that led to the development and implementation of what is now called radar. It was radar that allowed their tiny raft to be detected, just as they were running out of food and water. Readers are introduced to major scientific concepts as they are discovered over a period of one hundred fifty years and the brilliant scientists who observed the world around them, experimented and had their own struggles to understand concepts that weren't obvious. Lantos explains the science in a readable and easy-to-understand way.
Lantos features Michael Faraday who "proved that a magnetic force generates its own electrical force," and that magnetic and electrical forces are interconnected and move through space. James Clerk Maxwell mathematically proved the existence of electromagnetic fields and discovered the laws of electromagnetism. He built on Faraday's discoveries proving "that we're surround by a second, invisible layer, one not directly accessible to our senses." In the early 1890's, Henry Hertz, a German physicist, "became the first person to radiate and detect an electromagnetic wave." In 1897, Guglielmo Marconi used an electromagnetic wave to transmit a message in Morse code. But it was Nikola Tesla, building upon the discoveries and work of all those who came before, who wrote that "the reflection of an electrical wave could be used 'to determine the relative position or course of a moving object such as a vessel at sea."
Lantos describes just how difficult it was to convince the military that this discovery might actually be useful. The science probably seemed the stuff of fantasy. Tesla couldn't raise the money to further develop his idea but in 1904, German inventor, Christian Hulsmeyer, created a device (he called it a telemobiloscope) that proved Tesla was correct. However, when he tried to interest the German navy in his invention, he was rejected. The German navy rejected a tweaked version a second time in 1916. Tesla tried a second time to interest the U.S. Navy while Guglielmo Marconi gave a talk reiterating how Hertz's discovery could be used to detect ships and submarines. It wasn't until the post World War I era, that two Americans finally were finally listening and understanding. Dr. Albert Hoyt Taylor and Leo Young would actually show that Tesla was absolutely correct - electromagnetic waves could be reflected and be used to identify objects!
Radar and the Raft demonstrates how one specific discovery about the natural world, in this case electromagnetic waves could have far reaching implications for daily life. By understanding one aspect of the invisible world, scientists were able to apply their understanding to develop many new tools, the first being, radar. In 1942, this helped in the rescue of seventeen survivors on a wooden raft in the ocean. It led a year later to victory for the Allies in the Battle of the Atlantic, as the Nazis lost too many U-boats to make this form of warfare practical. Lantos shows his readers how one discovery let to the development of many things we take for granted today: microwaves, air traffic control radar, television broadcasting, remote controls, weather radar, cell phones and radar guns, MRI, keyless fobs, GPS, driverless cars and smart watches.
Radar and the Raft is filled with many photographs relevant to the two stories including photographs of ships, newspaper articles, experimental apparatus, paintings and photographs of famous scientists and even a photograph of the raft as it was first seen from the HMS Vimy. Many of the chapters telling the story of the Bells feature artwork done in watercolor done on Fabriano 5 paper. There is a Cast of Characters at the front of the book and the back matter includes detailed Source Notes, A Selected Bibliography, Image Credits and an Index.
Readers who enjoy science, survival stories and books about World War II will enjoy Radar and the Raft.
Book Details:
Radar and the Raft by Jeff Lantos
Watertown, MA: Charlesbridge 2024
Radar and the Raft by Jeff Lantos
Watertown, MA: Charlesbridge 2024
186 pp.
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