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A review by sheltzer
81 Days Below Zero: The Incredible Survival Story of a World War II Pilot in Alaska's Frozen Wilderness by Toula Vlahou
3.0
Apparently I have a thing about WWII planes crashing in the great white north. Last year I read about the Grumman Duck in Greenland, this year I followed the story of Leon Crane who crashed in the interior of Alaska.
Crane's bomber was out for a routine run to test out the feathering on the propellers when an engine stalled out and the plane crashed. Crane and one other crewmen were able to jump out of the plane, but only Crane survived. He did so by walking out of the forest to safety. It took 81 days in the Alaskan winter for him to do so. Good fortune smiled on him in that he found a cabin with a cache of supplies which allowed him to recover from the crash's aftermath and regain the feeling in his hands as well as upgrade his winter gear.
The story itself is relatively simple. It's not as fleshed out as it could have been, not by fault of the author, but because Crane appears to have suffered from survivor's guilt and wouldn't talk much about his ordeal.
My only other complaint about the book is that Mr. Murphy found interesting tidbits that were tangentially related to the main story and stuck them into the narrative, disrupting the flow of the book. I would have preferred these as foot/end notes or in an appendix of some kind.
An interesting read, made more interesting having lived in Fairbanks for 3 years so I understood the dangers of the weather and the rough geography of the area.
Crane's bomber was out for a routine run to test out the feathering on the propellers when an engine stalled out and the plane crashed. Crane and one other crewmen were able to jump out of the plane, but only Crane survived. He did so by walking out of the forest to safety. It took 81 days in the Alaskan winter for him to do so. Good fortune smiled on him in that he found a cabin with a cache of supplies which allowed him to recover from the crash's aftermath and regain the feeling in his hands as well as upgrade his winter gear.
The story itself is relatively simple. It's not as fleshed out as it could have been, not by fault of the author, but because Crane appears to have suffered from survivor's guilt and wouldn't talk much about his ordeal.
My only other complaint about the book is that Mr. Murphy found interesting tidbits that were tangentially related to the main story and stuck them into the narrative, disrupting the flow of the book. I would have preferred these as foot/end notes or in an appendix of some kind.
An interesting read, made more interesting having lived in Fairbanks for 3 years so I understood the dangers of the weather and the rough geography of the area.