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Frozen in Time: An Epic Story of Survival and a Modern Quest for Lost Heroes of World War II
Goodreads Choice Award
Nominee for Readers' Favorite History & Biography (2013)On November 5, 1942, a US cargo plane slammed into the Greenland Ice Cap. Four days later, the B-17 assigned to the search-and-rescue mission became lost in a blinding storm and also crashed. Miraculously, all nine men on board survived, and the US military launched a daring rescue operation. But after picking up one man, the Grumman Duck amphibious plane flew into a severe storm and vanished.
Frozen in Time tells the story of these crashes and the fate of the survivors, bringing vividly to life their battle to endure 148 days of the brutal Arctic winter, until an expedition headed by famed Arctic explorer Bernt Balchen brought them to safety. Mitchell Zuckoff takes the reader deep into the most hostile environment on earth, through hurricane-force winds, vicious blizzards, and subzero temperatures.
Moving forward to today, he recounts the efforts of the Coast Guard and North South Polar Inc. – led by indefatigable dreamer Lou Sapienza – who worked for years to solve the mystery of the Duck’s last flight and recover the remains of its crew.
A breathtaking blend of mystery and adventure Mitchell Zuckoff's Frozen in Time: An Epic Story of Survival and a Modern Quest for Lost Heroes of World War II is also a poignant reminder of the sacrifices of our military personnel and a tribute to the everyday heroism of the US Coast Guard.
Frozen in Time tells the story of these crashes and the fate of the survivors, bringing vividly to life their battle to endure 148 days of the brutal Arctic winter, until an expedition headed by famed Arctic explorer Bernt Balchen brought them to safety. Mitchell Zuckoff takes the reader deep into the most hostile environment on earth, through hurricane-force winds, vicious blizzards, and subzero temperatures.
Moving forward to today, he recounts the efforts of the Coast Guard and North South Polar Inc. – led by indefatigable dreamer Lou Sapienza – who worked for years to solve the mystery of the Duck’s last flight and recover the remains of its crew.
A breathtaking blend of mystery and adventure Mitchell Zuckoff's Frozen in Time: An Epic Story of Survival and a Modern Quest for Lost Heroes of World War II is also a poignant reminder of the sacrifices of our military personnel and a tribute to the everyday heroism of the US Coast Guard.
391 pages, Hardcover
First published April 23, 2013
1014 people are currently reading
15671 people want to read
About the author
Mitchell Zuckoff
21 books720 followersMitchell Zuckoff is a professor of journalism at Boston University. He is the author of the New York Times bestsellers "Fall and Rise," "13 Hours," "Lost in Shangri-La," and "Frozen in Time." His previous books are: "Robert Altman: The Oral Biography," one of Amazon.com's "Best Books of 2009"; "Ponzi's Scheme," and "Choosing Naia." He is co-author of "Judgment Ridge," which was a finalist for the Edgar Award.
Zuckoff's magazine work has appeared in The New Yorker, Fortune, and other national and regional publications. He is a former special projects reporter for The Boston Globe, where he was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for investigative reporting as a member of the Spotlight Team. He received the Distinguished Writing Award from the American Society of Newspaper Editors, the Livingston Award for International Reporting, the Heywood Broun Award, and the Associated Press Managing Editors' Public Service Award, among other national honors. He lives outside Boston.
Zuckoff's magazine work has appeared in The New Yorker, Fortune, and other national and regional publications. He is a former special projects reporter for The Boston Globe, where he was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for investigative reporting as a member of the Spotlight Team. He received the Distinguished Writing Award from the American Society of Newspaper Editors, the Livingston Award for International Reporting, the Heywood Broun Award, and the Associated Press Managing Editors' Public Service Award, among other national honors. He lives outside Boston.
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March 16, 2023
Winter is coming.
Mitchell Zuckoff seems to be making a habit of looking into the travails of crash victims. His prior book, Lost in Shangri-la, followed three survivors of a WW II era plane crash in New Guinea. They faced the usual sorts of dangers, a step back to the Paleolithic, and a diverse assortment of possible ways to die; cannibals, elements of an enemy army, all sorts of predatory and/or poisonous critters, microscopic invaders that could ruin your day, and help see that it is your last. The whole world was watching and cheering for their safe return.
Reversing his orientation a bit this time Zuckoff, in his latest WW II opus, Frozen in Time, has substituted brutal cold, and a particularly unwelcoming landscape for those other hazards. I’ll take the cannibals every time. (with a nice Chianti) In this instance, the whole world was unaware of the events until well after they had come to a conclusion. Upping his game, Zuckoff deals not with a single crash, but with several, in a cascade.
Mitchell Zuckoff - image from the author's site
I suggest that if you have a choice between death by the fire of a predatory jungle or the ice of an arctic wasteland, you would do well to choose the former. You’d have a better chance of making it. At least you would not have to worry so much that the ground on which you were standing might open up and swallow you whole, that you might lose body parts to the relentless cold of Arctic winter, that you might lose your mind waiting to be brought home, while blizzard-driven snow seeps into your shelter. And of course there is always the danger of becoming a GI-sicle for a prowling polar bear. There are survivors of this experience who lived through 148 days worth of cold days in hell.
There is a saying that bad things come in threes. It might have been nice if that had been the case in Greenland, in 1942. Greenland seems to have the same effect on powered vehicles as the Bermuda Triangle. There were at least a dozen crashes there in 1942. The trouble under scrutiny here began on November 5, when a military cargo plane, a C-53 Skytrooper, [above] the equivalent of a civilian DC-3 airliner, was returning to its base from Reykjavik after a “milk run” delivery of war materials. It was carrying a crew of five.
On November 9 a B17F, a “Flying Fortress” redirected from its mission in Germany to participate in the search, ran into trouble
On November 29th, desperate to evacuate members of crews what had been stranded in an arctic wasteland for weeks, a pontooned Grumman seaplane know as a Duck, assigned to the Coast Guard ship Northland was making a second daring run, having already rescued some survivors.
It went back for more. But a storm blew in before the Duck could make it back to its base. The pilot was flying blind. The plane crashed into the ice. This is an image of the very plane, taking off. Not a lucky ducky.
There is more, but these are the big three bits of awfulness of this tale.
Frozen in Time tells the stories of how the crash survivors fared, how the rescue operations were planned and how those worked out, or didn’t. These stories are both fascinating and chilling. There are many examples told of MacGyver-like creativity on the ground among the crash-ees, among the rescue teams and, decades later, in an expedition looking to bring ’em home. This last is a parallel tale that is given much less than half the book. Not all the men and not all the planes made it back in 1942. The author becomes involved with people who are looking to find and repatriate the remains of the crash victims who did not survive. There are a lot of personalities in play here and a fair bit of politicking. It is not as interesting as the core survival tale, but it is informative. A recovery mission does indeed take place, in 2012, and the author is a full participant in that.
It’s tough enough finding a 60+ year old wreck that stands still, (not counting myself) but in Greenland the ice sheet is a very large moving target. Drop a flag on point A and when you return it could be at Points E, Q or X. And then there is the accumulation of more than half a century’s worth of compacted snow.
But the meat of the story is the tales of survival, how these men (all the crash-ees were men) contended with such a hostile environment, what they did to create livable living spaces, how they coped with hunger, as well as cold, and fear. Some fared better than others. It is a bit frightening to learn that a plane landing on a glacier is in danger of getting frozen to it, like a warm tongue to a frozen pipe. There are uplifting items as well in this dark tale. You will learn about the “Short Snorters Club,” if you are not already a member, and the purpose of a Snublebus. You will also expand your vocabulary a tad with some arctic terms.
You will learn as well, about the dedication of the military to bringing home every reachable service member, and about some of the after-effects of the stranding experience on those who made it out.
There are several crews to keep track of and I think it would have been useful for there to have been a section listing them by vehicle, rather than, or in addition to the straight alphabetic list provided in an appendix. That said, the volume I read was an ARE so there may be a difference or two between what I saw and what is in the final hardcover edition. Just in case it is not provided there, I have tucked the crew list by craft under this spoiler notice.
You are on your own keeping track of other planes, ships and ground-based rescue teams that come into play in this story.
If you liked Lost in Shangri-La, it is a good bet you will find it worth the effort to search for a copy of Frozen in Time and bring it home. Read it in a warm place.
=============================EXTRA STUFF
Links to the author’s personal, Twitter, Instagram, and FB pages
Items of Interest
-----Harper Collins promo video
-----Video of the downhole camera. (2012) Uncomfortably similar to a medical scoping
-----A Coast Guard page on an earlier attempt to locate the Duck
-----North South Polar - Lou's site
-----List of crashes - 1942-44
====================================
Cross posted on my site, Coot's Reviews - all the intended images appear there
Mitchell Zuckoff seems to be making a habit of looking into the travails of crash victims. His prior book, Lost in Shangri-la, followed three survivors of a WW II era plane crash in New Guinea. They faced the usual sorts of dangers, a step back to the Paleolithic, and a diverse assortment of possible ways to die; cannibals, elements of an enemy army, all sorts of predatory and/or poisonous critters, microscopic invaders that could ruin your day, and help see that it is your last. The whole world was watching and cheering for their safe return.
Reversing his orientation a bit this time Zuckoff, in his latest WW II opus, Frozen in Time, has substituted brutal cold, and a particularly unwelcoming landscape for those other hazards. I’ll take the cannibals every time. (with a nice Chianti) In this instance, the whole world was unaware of the events until well after they had come to a conclusion. Upping his game, Zuckoff deals not with a single crash, but with several, in a cascade.
Mitchell Zuckoff - image from the author's site
I suggest that if you have a choice between death by the fire of a predatory jungle or the ice of an arctic wasteland, you would do well to choose the former. You’d have a better chance of making it. At least you would not have to worry so much that the ground on which you were standing might open up and swallow you whole, that you might lose body parts to the relentless cold of Arctic winter, that you might lose your mind waiting to be brought home, while blizzard-driven snow seeps into your shelter. And of course there is always the danger of becoming a GI-sicle for a prowling polar bear. There are survivors of this experience who lived through 148 days worth of cold days in hell.
There is a saying that bad things come in threes. It might have been nice if that had been the case in Greenland, in 1942. Greenland seems to have the same effect on powered vehicles as the Bermuda Triangle. There were at least a dozen crashes there in 1942. The trouble under scrutiny here began on November 5, when a military cargo plane, a C-53 Skytrooper, [above] the equivalent of a civilian DC-3 airliner, was returning to its base from Reykjavik after a “milk run” delivery of war materials. It was carrying a crew of five.
Shortly after the plane reached the southeast cost of Greenland, a location that defined the edge of nowhere, disaster struck: …the Skytrooper went down on the ice cap. By some accounts, the crash occurred when one of the plane’s two engines failed, but other reports were silent on why the C-53 experienced what the military called a “forced landing.” The official crash report declared the cause “unknown and no reason given in radio contacts.” A handwritten notation added, “100 percent undetermined.”The air over Greenland was a busy locale in those days, with dozens of flights transporting men and materials to the war every day, then returning home to do it again. But Greenland is the largest non-continental island on Planet Earth so, even with a lot of planes searching, locating a downed aircraft was no simple task. Here are some comparisons:
California – 163,696 sq milesIn other words, big frackin’ haystack.
Texas – 268,820 sq miles
Alaska – 663,696 sq miles
Greenland – 836,302 sq miles
On November 9 a B17F, a “Flying Fortress” redirected from its mission in Germany to participate in the search, ran into trouble
When they reached the end of Koge Bay fjord, [the crew] saw that everything outside was the same frightening shade of whitish gray. They couldn’t tell where the sky ended and the ice cap began…When the true horizon disappears in the Arctic haze, a pilot might as well be blind. Pilots fortunate enough to survive the phenomenon describe the experience as “flying in milk.”Or, ironically, the exact opposite of a milk run. It did not end well, and nine more servicemen were unwillingly grounded.
On November 29th, desperate to evacuate members of crews what had been stranded in an arctic wasteland for weeks, a pontooned Grumman seaplane know as a Duck, assigned to the Coast Guard ship Northland was making a second daring run, having already rescued some survivors.
It went back for more. But a storm blew in before the Duck could make it back to its base. The pilot was flying blind. The plane crashed into the ice. This is an image of the very plane, taking off. Not a lucky ducky.
There is more, but these are the big three bits of awfulness of this tale.
Frozen in Time tells the stories of how the crash survivors fared, how the rescue operations were planned and how those worked out, or didn’t. These stories are both fascinating and chilling. There are many examples told of MacGyver-like creativity on the ground among the crash-ees, among the rescue teams and, decades later, in an expedition looking to bring ’em home. This last is a parallel tale that is given much less than half the book. Not all the men and not all the planes made it back in 1942. The author becomes involved with people who are looking to find and repatriate the remains of the crash victims who did not survive. There are a lot of personalities in play here and a fair bit of politicking. It is not as interesting as the core survival tale, but it is informative. A recovery mission does indeed take place, in 2012, and the author is a full participant in that.
It’s tough enough finding a 60+ year old wreck that stands still, (not counting myself) but in Greenland the ice sheet is a very large moving target. Drop a flag on point A and when you return it could be at Points E, Q or X. And then there is the accumulation of more than half a century’s worth of compacted snow.
Imagine searching for a diamond chip buried deep beneath a frozen football field; your best tool is a straw what makes tiny holes into the ground, through which you peer down to see what’s below; if your holes miss by even a little, you’ll miss it; and you have a brief window to explore ten potential locations before being kicked off the field.The story of the attempt at recovering remains is certainly interesting. It is no surprise that there are sundry parties at Department of Defense meetings who offer a chilly reception to the contractor who was looking to undertake the mission. We get to be a fly on the wall for a few of these.
But the meat of the story is the tales of survival, how these men (all the crash-ees were men) contended with such a hostile environment, what they did to create livable living spaces, how they coped with hunger, as well as cold, and fear. Some fared better than others. It is a bit frightening to learn that a plane landing on a glacier is in danger of getting frozen to it, like a warm tongue to a frozen pipe. There are uplifting items as well in this dark tale. You will learn about the “Short Snorters Club,” if you are not already a member, and the purpose of a Snublebus. You will also expand your vocabulary a tad with some arctic terms.
You will learn as well, about the dedication of the military to bringing home every reachable service member, and about some of the after-effects of the stranding experience on those who made it out.
Spencer’s family knew him as warm and funny, and they’d remember him as a man who bought toilet paper in bulk long before warehouse stores. When his younger daughter Carol Sue asked why, Spencer explained: “I have been without toilet paper,” he told her, “and I am never going to be without toilet paper again.”Not Scarlett O’Hara perhaps, but a telling indication of the permanence of the crash experience on the survivors. Many found themselves with increased susceptibility to cold. Not everyone had the luxury of such discomfort. One poor bastard survived a crash in the B-17 only to succumb to another as he was being flown away from the bomber in a rescue plane.
There are several crews to keep track of and I think it would have been useful for there to have been a section listing them by vehicle, rather than, or in addition to the straight alphabetic list provided in an appendix. That said, the volume I read was an ARE so there may be a difference or two between what I saw and what is in the final hardcover edition. Just in case it is not provided there, I have tucked the crew list by craft under this spoiler notice.
You are on your own keeping track of other planes, ships and ground-based rescue teams that come into play in this story.
If you liked Lost in Shangri-La, it is a good bet you will find it worth the effort to search for a copy of Frozen in Time and bring it home. Read it in a warm place.
=============================EXTRA STUFF
Links to the author’s personal, Twitter, Instagram, and FB pages
Items of Interest
-----Harper Collins promo video
-----Video of the downhole camera. (2012) Uncomfortably similar to a medical scoping
-----A Coast Guard page on an earlier attempt to locate the Duck
-----North South Polar - Lou's site
-----List of crashes - 1942-44
====================================
Cross posted on my site, Coot's Reviews - all the intended images appear there
February 14, 2016
Thanks to Coach Gordon Bombay and the Mighty Ducks (D2 to be specific), I already knew that "Greenland" was a bit of a misnomer.
Greenland
, of course, is covered in ice, while Iceland is allegedly quite lush (although their hockey players are jerks). However, during World War II, suddenly everyone wanted in on Greenland's oft-forgotten frozen expanse. Not only did the location make for a nice little fueling spot for
B-17s
en route to either side of the Atlantic, it also could have served as a missile launching pad for axis forces with their sights set stateside.
The Setup
For those of you who have read Lost in Shangri-la , you're probably aware that WWII plane crash survival stories are kind of Mitchell Zuckoff's thing (in addition to the use of extremely long subtitles). This time around there's a sort of meta story of how the story itself was researched and modern day obsession with what happened in the past (much like in David Gran's The Lost City of Z ). I was not a fan of the frame-tale for this one, but it wasn't poorly written, it just didn't add much to the thrill of the read. Also, there are a lot of names involved in this story. I had trouble keeping track of them, so I'm not going to really use them in this review, but Zuckoff's site details the cast of characters.
Disaster Part One
If any of you have been lifeguards, EMTs or have taken basic first aid, then you'll know that a sure fire way to fail your practical is by not "surveying the scene" before attempting to help. The principle behind this is pretty basic- it's easier to rescue one person than it is two, two than three et cetera. Well, in the Coast Guard/military, that's not how things work- their m.o. is more no man left behind . So, when an American C-53 cargo plane went down with five survivors tapping out distress signals, everyone was all like "of course we'll go rescue them on that crazy-weathered iceberg."
So, after a bit of scouting involving motor sleds and possibly some dogs, a group of brave Coast Guard men, set out in their B -17 PN9E to do some rescuing.
More Disaster
Guess what? The B-17 crashed too. This added another nine to the count of men stranded in -40 degree weather with few supplies and low-visibility. If you're a fan of multi-national aeronautical disaster, then this is the book for you, because a Royal Air Force A-20 with a Royal Canadian Air Force crew, also had to make a forced landing on the same east coast ice cap.
So, to sum it all up, we've got three planes down in Greenland in already horrible conditions and, not to get all Game of Thrones-y on you, but winter really was on its way. There's a lot of provisioning going on, near misses with crevasses and the thrill (for me at least) of dogs to the rescue .
Duck Hunt
The words "duck hunt" immediately make me think of the annoyingly inaccurate "zapper" and smug, snickering, pixelated dog from the 1980s Nintendo game. The duck hunt in this story, however, deals with a bird of a different feather (I make no apologies for my puns).
Thanks to Rip Riley, everyone should by now know that a seaplane looks like an airplane had a baby with a boat.
If we run with Rip's metaphor, then the Grumman Duck would be the phocomelia thalidomide scare poster child because it is one weird piece of aeronautical equipment.
However, the duck and its operators proved their mettle when they were able to successfully land and rescue two of the men stranded in the B-17. The duck too, alas, was lost with its two heroic airmen to the arctic environs on the return trip, never to be seen again...unless, of course, the modern quest for lost heroes were to succeed.
My take
It's a decent adventure story that will fascinate you if you're into planes. I am not really a plane person (feel free to correct any misnomers or whatever in this review, although I already know that the pictured J2F is the wrong version, but I thought it looked cool), so this wasn't my favorite disaster and discovery tale.
The Setup
For those of you who have read Lost in Shangri-la , you're probably aware that WWII plane crash survival stories are kind of Mitchell Zuckoff's thing (in addition to the use of extremely long subtitles). This time around there's a sort of meta story of how the story itself was researched and modern day obsession with what happened in the past (much like in David Gran's The Lost City of Z ). I was not a fan of the frame-tale for this one, but it wasn't poorly written, it just didn't add much to the thrill of the read. Also, there are a lot of names involved in this story. I had trouble keeping track of them, so I'm not going to really use them in this review, but Zuckoff's site details the cast of characters.
Disaster Part One
If any of you have been lifeguards, EMTs or have taken basic first aid, then you'll know that a sure fire way to fail your practical is by not "surveying the scene" before attempting to help. The principle behind this is pretty basic- it's easier to rescue one person than it is two, two than three et cetera. Well, in the Coast Guard/military, that's not how things work- their m.o. is more no man left behind . So, when an American C-53 cargo plane went down with five survivors tapping out distress signals, everyone was all like "of course we'll go rescue them on that crazy-weathered iceberg."
So, after a bit of scouting involving motor sleds and possibly some dogs, a group of brave Coast Guard men, set out in their B -17 PN9E to do some rescuing.
More Disaster
Guess what? The B-17 crashed too. This added another nine to the count of men stranded in -40 degree weather with few supplies and low-visibility. If you're a fan of multi-national aeronautical disaster, then this is the book for you, because a Royal Air Force A-20 with a Royal Canadian Air Force crew, also had to make a forced landing on the same east coast ice cap.
So, to sum it all up, we've got three planes down in Greenland in already horrible conditions and, not to get all Game of Thrones-y on you, but winter really was on its way. There's a lot of provisioning going on, near misses with crevasses and the thrill (for me at least) of dogs to the rescue .
Duck Hunt
The words "duck hunt" immediately make me think of the annoyingly inaccurate "zapper" and smug, snickering, pixelated dog from the 1980s Nintendo game. The duck hunt in this story, however, deals with a bird of a different feather (I make no apologies for my puns).
Thanks to Rip Riley, everyone should by now know that a seaplane looks like an airplane had a baby with a boat.
If we run with Rip's metaphor, then the Grumman Duck would be the phocomelia thalidomide scare poster child because it is one weird piece of aeronautical equipment.
However, the duck and its operators proved their mettle when they were able to successfully land and rescue two of the men stranded in the B-17. The duck too, alas, was lost with its two heroic airmen to the arctic environs on the return trip, never to be seen again...unless, of course, the modern quest for lost heroes were to succeed.
My take
It's a decent adventure story that will fascinate you if you're into planes. I am not really a plane person (feel free to correct any misnomers or whatever in this review, although I already know that the pictured J2F is the wrong version, but I thought it looked cool), so this wasn't my favorite disaster and discovery tale.
June 3, 2020
In November 1942, an American military plane crashed in Greenland. In a search and rescue effort, two other planes crashed. The end result was nine men stranded in extreme cold in a remote location, attempting to survive in intermittent blizzards with limited food. Mitchell Zuckoff tells the story of the multiple crashes and the heroic rescue attempts. He weaves in an account of a 2012 expedition (in which he played a key role) to locate and recover one of the missing planes.
This narrative non-fiction is filled people facing dangerous conditions. It includes planes landing on ice, planes flying in “milk” (white-out), dog sled teams traveling across unstable glaciers, isolated crash survivors facing frostbite, hypothermia, and psychological trauma. It serves to highlight one of the lesser known stories of WWII. It is well-researched and told with dramatic flair. Just when we think conditions cannot get worse, they do.
As in most dual storylines, one of the two is more riveting than the other. The modern quest for lost heroes is perhaps a bit oversold. I listened to the audiobook, competently read by the author. Unlike some authors reading their own books, Zuckoff has a pleasant voice and conveys the intensity of the situation. It is a gripping story that will appeal to those interested in WWII history, aviation, geology, and accounts of survival in harsh conditions.
This narrative non-fiction is filled people facing dangerous conditions. It includes planes landing on ice, planes flying in “milk” (white-out), dog sled teams traveling across unstable glaciers, isolated crash survivors facing frostbite, hypothermia, and psychological trauma. It serves to highlight one of the lesser known stories of WWII. It is well-researched and told with dramatic flair. Just when we think conditions cannot get worse, they do.
As in most dual storylines, one of the two is more riveting than the other. The modern quest for lost heroes is perhaps a bit oversold. I listened to the audiobook, competently read by the author. Unlike some authors reading their own books, Zuckoff has a pleasant voice and conveys the intensity of the situation. It is a gripping story that will appeal to those interested in WWII history, aviation, geology, and accounts of survival in harsh conditions.
February 10, 2017
After reading Zuckoff's book, 13 Hours, I moved this book up in my to-read list and I am glad I did. The book moves along fast and I like the amount of background Zuckoff gives. The modern day Duck Hunt parts of the book also puts makes the book more interesting. This book is what I love about reading, and that is bringing history back to life and while also honouring brave men and women. Another hit by Zuckoff!!
November 30, 2015
A compelling addition to World War II stories, Frozen in Time is a story of endurance, survival and determination. This account of the ill fate of a crashed US cargo plane in Greenland in 1942 and its nine crew members, is a brutal read as the men struggle to survive while others try to rescue them. Not all is successful but for those that do survive their lives are owed not only to their own stamina but to the dedication of those who would not give them up. Zuckoff weaves this rescue mission with the present day assignment to recover the rescue plane and its heroic crew that did not make it home. A truly riveting read. Truly humbling as you read the conditions these men endure while awaiting rescue. Imagine 148 days in this Arctic element!
January 5, 2018
This was such a good follow up book to my first disappointing book of the year (Persepolis rising) , after that I needed something different. This book is about a perilous ice rescue in Greenland, many things go wrong and the story takes it from there . If you like adventure, ice and exploration this book will satisfy you for sure .
April 26, 2013
The Planes went down not in the sea, or the woods, and not somewhere that could easily be located by a rescue team or on a land that they could arrive safely on.
The bleakest of environments the remotest of places, Greenland.
Not just one crash, but many, lives lost in the rescue effort.
Greenland will host men that represent bravery, determination and great willpower for survival, all in cause for the greater good of their fellow men, while a war raged with men an even greater war took hold, with a lethal and power force that does not discriminate, nature.
The rescue of the men in Greenland became a great challenge and proved to be a disastrous and terrible beauty, unforgiving to its denizens with the accumulating snow and snow storms, its unstable shifting icy surface and no exact crash position, time held the most paramount importance, every second counted and was a second closer to a grim end, in freezing conditions people would loose something if not their minds or starvation then possibly limbs.
What happened to the Grumman Duck amphibious plane and the three men it carried?
At the end of this book the author writes,
"This book tells two true stories, one from the past and one from the present.
The historic story revolves around three American military planes that crashed in Greenland during World War II," and
"I played a role in the Duck Hunt, and I appear in the book, but it isn't about me. It's about ordinary people thrust by fate or duty into extraordinary circumstances, one group in 1942 and another group seventy years later. Separated by time but connected by character, their bravery, endurance, and sacrifices reveal the power of humanity in inhumane conditions. I hope I've done them justice."
Well you have Mitchell Zuckoff done a great justice in this wonderful story of truth, you have done research that truly goes beyond the norm for writing non-fiction and will be like ancient carving on a tree, for many a reader etched in the mind.
A story, a rescue that would prove to present "a miracle on ice."
Review also @ http://more2read.com/review/frozen-in-time-an-epic-story-of-survival
The bleakest of environments the remotest of places, Greenland.
Not just one crash, but many, lives lost in the rescue effort.
Greenland will host men that represent bravery, determination and great willpower for survival, all in cause for the greater good of their fellow men, while a war raged with men an even greater war took hold, with a lethal and power force that does not discriminate, nature.
The rescue of the men in Greenland became a great challenge and proved to be a disastrous and terrible beauty, unforgiving to its denizens with the accumulating snow and snow storms, its unstable shifting icy surface and no exact crash position, time held the most paramount importance, every second counted and was a second closer to a grim end, in freezing conditions people would loose something if not their minds or starvation then possibly limbs.
What happened to the Grumman Duck amphibious plane and the three men it carried?
At the end of this book the author writes,
"This book tells two true stories, one from the past and one from the present.
The historic story revolves around three American military planes that crashed in Greenland during World War II," and
"I played a role in the Duck Hunt, and I appear in the book, but it isn't about me. It's about ordinary people thrust by fate or duty into extraordinary circumstances, one group in 1942 and another group seventy years later. Separated by time but connected by character, their bravery, endurance, and sacrifices reveal the power of humanity in inhumane conditions. I hope I've done them justice."
Well you have Mitchell Zuckoff done a great justice in this wonderful story of truth, you have done research that truly goes beyond the norm for writing non-fiction and will be like ancient carving on a tree, for many a reader etched in the mind.
A story, a rescue that would prove to present "a miracle on ice."
"A more immediate worry was the cold. They had no heat, no light, no stove. They had no
sleeping bags, no heavy clothing, no Arctic survival gear. A few seconds outside would coat a man's face with frost. In minutes, blood would rush from his extremities to his core. Exposed skin would die. In the sky, the men on a B-17 were warriors. On the ground, they were frozen sardines in a busted-open can."
"The war would wait, but freezing American airmen wouldn't."
"In a world where size generally matters, Greenland's doesn't. The island is globally overlooked despite being enormous: more than sixteen hundred miles from north to south, and eight hundred miles at its widest point. Greenland could swallow Texas and California
and still have room for a dessert of New Mexico, Arizona, Florida, Pennsylvania, and all of New England. It's three times the size of France, and it occupies more than twice the area of the planet's second-largest island, New Guinea.
Yet Greenland is the world's loneliest place. With fifty-eight thousand residents, it has the lowest population density of any country or dependent territory. Only Antarctica, with no permanent residents, makes Greenland seem crowded. If Manhattan had the same population density as Greenland, its population would be two."
"To fight cabin fever, they played word games. They named all the countries, rivers, capitals, islands, and every other geographical feature they could think of. They told and retold their life stories and talked about whatever came to mind. Still they ran out of things to say, so they spent long periods in silence. The isolation, the wind, the moving glacier beneath their feet, and the relentless cold preyed on their nerves. They seemed to take turns breaking down, wishing their ordeal were over, one way or another. Each time, the other two would comfort the crying man. When the cycle unraveled, all three sank into despair at the same time. They hatched a suicide pact."
Review also @ http://more2read.com/review/frozen-in-time-an-epic-story-of-survival
June 16, 2013
EXCELLENT......4.5 stars!!!!
I did find the reading (itself), a little more challenging for me (than "Lost In Shangri-La)--yet I was deeply moved at the same time. In my mind THIS book...(this story), had to be more challenging to write than "Lost In Shangri-La" also. The dedication (physical dedication to boot), which the author put himself through is flooring....(it HAD to be dangerous) ---
Really--I would have been petrified if my husband's job involved THIS type of research!
I learned a part of history I knew nothing about --
I even now have a deeper appreciation for this (chilly) country ---LET ALONE the heroes (characters), which this book is written about!
Mitchell Zuckoff just might be my personal 'go to' when I KNOW its time for me to read about areas of history that I've many holes in my own education.
If history had been taught the way HE writes books ---I may have enjoyed my own history classes more.
As an old far 'woman' I'm aware I am 'growing' into my own natural desire to fill in a few more of those holes.
I've been enjoying Historical Fiction books for many years ---but would often shy away from NON-FICTION history books --- but after reading Zuckoff, Laura Hillenbrand, & Jon Krakauer also -- authors like these have helped WANT to read more (look up things I don't know, ask more questions, not shy away from being 'stupid'...and so on).
I still 'need' comfort reading --(don't get me wrong) ---but I'm DEEPLY thankful to authors like Zuckoff. (I was a late bloomer to reading even for enjoyment) ----
So---I hope Zuckoff does NOT get hurt on any of these projects he takes on (dangerous little plane rides)....lol, because I will look forward to his next book also --and the book after that!
I did find the reading (itself), a little more challenging for me (than "Lost In Shangri-La)--yet I was deeply moved at the same time. In my mind THIS book...(this story), had to be more challenging to write than "Lost In Shangri-La" also. The dedication (physical dedication to boot), which the author put himself through is flooring....(it HAD to be dangerous) ---
Really--I would have been petrified if my husband's job involved THIS type of research!
I learned a part of history I knew nothing about --
I even now have a deeper appreciation for this (chilly) country ---LET ALONE the heroes (characters), which this book is written about!
Mitchell Zuckoff just might be my personal 'go to' when I KNOW its time for me to read about areas of history that I've many holes in my own education.
If history had been taught the way HE writes books ---I may have enjoyed my own history classes more.
As an old far 'woman' I'm aware I am 'growing' into my own natural desire to fill in a few more of those holes.
I've been enjoying Historical Fiction books for many years ---but would often shy away from NON-FICTION history books --- but after reading Zuckoff, Laura Hillenbrand, & Jon Krakauer also -- authors like these have helped WANT to read more (look up things I don't know, ask more questions, not shy away from being 'stupid'...and so on).
I still 'need' comfort reading --(don't get me wrong) ---but I'm DEEPLY thankful to authors like Zuckoff. (I was a late bloomer to reading even for enjoyment) ----
So---I hope Zuckoff does NOT get hurt on any of these projects he takes on (dangerous little plane rides)....lol, because I will look forward to his next book also --and the book after that!
May 31, 2013
I will never look at snow, at ice, the same way again.
Being the daughter of a pilot, there was a lot of this that really hooked me in perhaps a slightly different way than others may have felt. While my father was a pilot for commercial airlines for most of his life, he started out at a very young age flying local routes - mostly mail routes, and later on trained the Air Force pilots when the pilots at Glenn L. Martin were "requested" to do so. Stories, I've heard plenty and pictures to go with them. There's very few places he never flew, but Greenland is one of those places that, as far as I know, he never flew, or never mentioned he flew over, but he had a few close calls in his career with flight.
As I was reading this, I was thinking of my Dad, and how much more appreciation he would have for this story of their survival, and how much appreciation he would have for the modern day quest to find these "lost heroes." The men involved in this story add another level of appreciation to the idea of a survival story. It's one thing to survive a crash, it's another to survive the conditions after the crash. Not only is this an epic story of their survival, but Zuckoff does a more than admirable job allowing us to get to know them before and after the crash, which adds immeasurably to the story.
There is also the modern quest for finding these men, which adds another era to the term heroes. There's a little bit of MacGyver'ing necessary to complete some of these tasks, and and lot more blood, sweat and tears to get to that point, but I was never disappointed.
Being the daughter of a pilot, there was a lot of this that really hooked me in perhaps a slightly different way than others may have felt. While my father was a pilot for commercial airlines for most of his life, he started out at a very young age flying local routes - mostly mail routes, and later on trained the Air Force pilots when the pilots at Glenn L. Martin were "requested" to do so. Stories, I've heard plenty and pictures to go with them. There's very few places he never flew, but Greenland is one of those places that, as far as I know, he never flew, or never mentioned he flew over, but he had a few close calls in his career with flight.
As I was reading this, I was thinking of my Dad, and how much more appreciation he would have for this story of their survival, and how much appreciation he would have for the modern day quest to find these "lost heroes." The men involved in this story add another level of appreciation to the idea of a survival story. It's one thing to survive a crash, it's another to survive the conditions after the crash. Not only is this an epic story of their survival, but Zuckoff does a more than admirable job allowing us to get to know them before and after the crash, which adds immeasurably to the story.
There is also the modern quest for finding these men, which adds another era to the term heroes. There's a little bit of MacGyver'ing necessary to complete some of these tasks, and and lot more blood, sweat and tears to get to that point, but I was never disappointed.
May 2, 2017
This was truly an amazing story of courage, determination, and the willingness of some to risk their lives to save another. In 1943, a cargo plan on a regular flight slammed into a Greenland ice cap. In an attempt to mount a recuse, a B-17 became lost because of a phenomena called "flying in milk" and this plane crashed. All survived the crash, all nine of them miraculously Another plane called the Grumman duck mounted a rescue but it faced a storm and vanished. It also was a story told of the efforts of a group from the Coast Guard and the North South Pole, led by a man named Lou Sapienza, to find the place and try to solve the mystery of why the Grumman duck went down. The expedition to do so occurred in 2012. By that time the Duck was buried under twenty feet of ice. How they eventually find the Duck forms an integral part of the story.
The book tells of these disasters and the efforts of a number of courageous people who were both lost and those who took part in the rescue efforts. It is hard to fathom the amount of courage it took to be a part of the mission to rescue these men in temperatures that went to forty degrees below zero and winds that clocked in at one hundred fifty miles per hour. It was unbelievable that men were able to survive for one hundred and forty-eight days in those conditions. There was no GPS, no radar, and surely no sophisticated planes/ships at that time as is today. These rescue pilots risked their lives to save their fellow man. Surely, no greater courage was there then to place oneself in the pathway of the Antarctic hell. The men who survived, those who perished, and those who rescued them were the epitome of bravery. This book was a tribute in part to our military and made one realize the important and often perilous work done by our Coast Guard.
The book tells of these disasters and the efforts of a number of courageous people who were both lost and those who took part in the rescue efforts. It is hard to fathom the amount of courage it took to be a part of the mission to rescue these men in temperatures that went to forty degrees below zero and winds that clocked in at one hundred fifty miles per hour. It was unbelievable that men were able to survive for one hundred and forty-eight days in those conditions. There was no GPS, no radar, and surely no sophisticated planes/ships at that time as is today. These rescue pilots risked their lives to save their fellow man. Surely, no greater courage was there then to place oneself in the pathway of the Antarctic hell. The men who survived, those who perished, and those who rescued them were the epitome of bravery. This book was a tribute in part to our military and made one realize the important and often perilous work done by our Coast Guard.
April 19, 2016
What an absolutely amazing, riveting and incredible book. Mitch Zuckoff does an amazing job telling two interwoven stories that take place almost seventy years apart. I was so absorbed in this book I almost forgot it is really an historical record of real life and death events. I was so engaged in the book I actually felt cold as I read about the conditions the survivors faced, cried when someone died, cheered (and cried) for every rescue. I physically jumped when Dunlop's plane engine exploded. My nerves were strained and frayed by the time I finished Chapter 23- Some Plan In This World. This is a situation that makes me wish I could talk to the Author. I cannot praise this book, this story and this author enough. Everyone should read this one. It is just amazing.
June 7, 2013
Mitchell Zuckoff’s Frozen in Time: An Epic Story of Survival and a Modern Quest for Lost Heroes of World War II is the account of a series of mind-boggling tragedies that occurred in Greenland in the 1940s. Beginning in November 1942, a U.S. cargo plane slams into a Greenland ice cap. Four days later, a B-17 searching for the plane becomes lost in a blinding storm and also crashes. A second rescue attempt is launched, and that plane flies into a severe storm and vanishes. Men and dog sled teams also put themselves at peril attempting to reach the crash site.
Zuckoff immerses himself in the researching of these events and recounts the heroic attempts that were made to bring men home from the ice cap. Some men from the original cargo plane survived. Some didn’t. Some rescuers survived. Some didn’t. Many of the men suffered terribly from the severe cold and deprivation, while others fared only slightly better.
Zuckoff’s book flips between the 1940s and today as he also writes about a modern-day, daring attempt to locate, and bring home, the bodies of three of the rescuers. It is especially interesting to read of their zany activities preparing for that excursion, with Zuckoff actually participating in the search and recovery efforts in Greenland. We soon see that the party is at peril as they try to find the remains of the plane and the three bodies. All of the modern equipment and technology at the party’s fingertips can’t stop the storm that is bearing down on them – threatening to halt their efforts and keep them in Greenland forever.
Zuckoff immerses himself in the researching of these events and recounts the heroic attempts that were made to bring men home from the ice cap. Some men from the original cargo plane survived. Some didn’t. Some rescuers survived. Some didn’t. Many of the men suffered terribly from the severe cold and deprivation, while others fared only slightly better.
Zuckoff’s book flips between the 1940s and today as he also writes about a modern-day, daring attempt to locate, and bring home, the bodies of three of the rescuers. It is especially interesting to read of their zany activities preparing for that excursion, with Zuckoff actually participating in the search and recovery efforts in Greenland. We soon see that the party is at peril as they try to find the remains of the plane and the three bodies. All of the modern equipment and technology at the party’s fingertips can’t stop the storm that is bearing down on them – threatening to halt their efforts and keep them in Greenland forever.
July 19, 2017
So good. So excellent so great!
This is why I love reading non fiction.
It does not happen often. That you start a nonfiction book about a subject you do not know much about.
In my case Greenland and what happened there during WW2 and that the author makes you really understand how it was and makes you interested in the subject and you wanting to learn more. For me that is why I love to read non fiction and Mitchell Zukoff managed all of the above.
Now I also love survival stories and if you like to read about those too I highly recommend this book but to be honest I recommend it to everyone.
This is why I love reading non fiction.
It does not happen often. That you start a nonfiction book about a subject you do not know much about.
In my case Greenland and what happened there during WW2 and that the author makes you really understand how it was and makes you interested in the subject and you wanting to learn more. For me that is why I love to read non fiction and Mitchell Zukoff managed all of the above.
Now I also love survival stories and if you like to read about those too I highly recommend this book but to be honest I recommend it to everyone.
February 11, 2025
Nine men struggling to survive on the harsh and desolate snow-packed landscape of Greenland. "They had no heat, no light, no stove. They had no sleeping bags, no heavy clothing, no Arctic survival gear." Will help come before they succumb to the subzero temperatures, 100+ mph winds, and fierce winter weather of the Arctic?
✏️ Review ✏️
Frozen in Time presents a thorough and riveting account of a daring WWII rescue operation. Zuckoff's fresh and engaging writing style is far from the dry and bland writing that typifies most nonfiction narratives. Zuckoff draws the reader right into the very heart of the action from the very beginning. I felt just like I was a part of this rescue myself and would breathe a sigh relief every time rescue became a reality for a man stuck on Greenland's barren ice cap. And despite the author taking no liberties whatsoever with the historical details, Frozen in Time still feels just like a fast-paced thriller.
Zuckoff also weaves in the 2012 account of the contemporary search for the planes that crashed in Greenland. This helps to shed light on the connection between the past and the present and gives further information about the WWII search and rescue operation. But since this book was published before a successful retrieval of the planes, extra research will need to be done outside of the book to complete this part of the picture. Frozen in Time is an informative and enjoyable read.
***But before you go off and start reading this book, I do have one major complaint: the last one-fifth of the book contains some pretty vulgar language (see the "Language" section in my "Book Breakdown" below for details). Obviously since this was at the very end of the book, I wasn't going to DNF it or otherwise I probably would have. Frozen in Time is still an excellent book. Unfortunately, I can recommend it only to mature adult readers.
📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚
📊 A Quick Overview 📊
👍🏼 What I Liked:
• The engaging and fresh writing style.
• The wealth of historical information presented.
• The inclusion of the contemporary account of the 2012 search for yhe missing planes
• The plurality of photographs that appear throughout the book.
👎🏼 What I Did Not Like:
• The vulgar language.
📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚
📖 BOOK BREAKDOWN 📖 (Overall: 2.5/5 [rounded down to 2 on Goodreads])
~Fundamentals {Nonfiction Version}: (1=worst; 5=best)
— 📑 Didactics: 2.5/5
— 📝 Writing: 3.5/5
— 👀 Engagement: 4/5
— 🧩 Clarity: 3.5/5
~Content: (0=none; 1=least; 5=most)
— 🤬 Language: 3/5
• Two uses of the f-word; two uses of the b-word; some uses of the s-word; one use of God's name in vain; and two uses of "h*ll."
— ⚔️ Violence: 2/5
• Some mildly graphic descriptions of injuries.
• A few potentially disturbing descriptions relating to some morbid elements about this rescue operation.
— ⚠️ Sexual: 0/5
📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚
📣 Random Comments 📣
• A note about my rating: Because Frozen in Time is an excellent piece of historical nonfiction, I would have given it a 3.5 overall rating. But to maintain consistency with past ratings and my rating guidelines, I'm subtracting one star due to the vulgar language, bringing the rating down to 2.5 stars and rounding down to 2 stars on Goodreads.
📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚
💬 Favorite Quotes 💬
• (None)
✏️ Review ✏️
Frozen in Time presents a thorough and riveting account of a daring WWII rescue operation. Zuckoff's fresh and engaging writing style is far from the dry and bland writing that typifies most nonfiction narratives. Zuckoff draws the reader right into the very heart of the action from the very beginning. I felt just like I was a part of this rescue myself and would breathe a sigh relief every time rescue became a reality for a man stuck on Greenland's barren ice cap. And despite the author taking no liberties whatsoever with the historical details, Frozen in Time still feels just like a fast-paced thriller.
Zuckoff also weaves in the 2012 account of the contemporary search for the planes that crashed in Greenland. This helps to shed light on the connection between the past and the present and gives further information about the WWII search and rescue operation. But since this book was published before a successful retrieval of the planes, extra research will need to be done outside of the book to complete this part of the picture. Frozen in Time is an informative and enjoyable read.
***But before you go off and start reading this book, I do have one major complaint: the last one-fifth of the book contains some pretty vulgar language (see the "Language" section in my "Book Breakdown" below for details). Obviously since this was at the very end of the book, I wasn't going to DNF it or otherwise I probably would have. Frozen in Time is still an excellent book. Unfortunately, I can recommend it only to mature adult readers.
📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚
📊 A Quick Overview 📊
👍🏼 What I Liked:
• The engaging and fresh writing style.
• The wealth of historical information presented.
• The inclusion of the contemporary account of the 2012 search for yhe missing planes
• The plurality of photographs that appear throughout the book.
👎🏼 What I Did Not Like:
• The vulgar language.
📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚
📖 BOOK BREAKDOWN 📖 (Overall: 2.5/5 [rounded down to 2 on Goodreads])
~Fundamentals {Nonfiction Version}: (1=worst; 5=best)
— 📑 Didactics: 2.5/5
— 📝 Writing: 3.5/5
— 👀 Engagement: 4/5
— 🧩 Clarity: 3.5/5
~Content: (0=none; 1=least; 5=most)
— 🤬 Language: 3/5
• Two uses of the f-word; two uses of the b-word; some uses of the s-word; one use of God's name in vain; and two uses of "h*ll."
— ⚔️ Violence: 2/5
• Some mildly graphic descriptions of injuries.
• A few potentially disturbing descriptions relating to some morbid elements about this rescue operation.
— ⚠️ Sexual: 0/5
📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚
📣 Random Comments 📣
• A note about my rating: Because Frozen in Time is an excellent piece of historical nonfiction, I would have given it a 3.5 overall rating. But to maintain consistency with past ratings and my rating guidelines, I'm subtracting one star due to the vulgar language, bringing the rating down to 2.5 stars and rounding down to 2 stars on Goodreads.
📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚
💬 Favorite Quotes 💬
• (None)
June 16, 2013
Before I sat down to write my review of Frozen in Time, I went back to read the review I did of Lost in Shangri-La, the last book I read by Mitchell Zuckoff. Boy, did I like that book. I'm not sure I've given such a glowing review to another nonfiction book since I've started blogging. I droned on and on about how masterfully the author was able to not only bring the events alive, but to humanize the the men and women involved, making them feel three dimensional in ways most authors can't do with historical figures. I had paragraph after paragraph lauding the author's narrative voice, his attention to detail, and his ability to make history as easy to read as fiction. It would be far easier for me to cut/paste my review of Lost in Shangri-La, changes a few names around, and have the review over and done with. Since that's cheating, I won't do that.
What I do want to say is how much I appreciate books like this. There is so much of our history, heroic stories that seem to be forgotten in a rather short amount of time. They may capture the news of day, or even a month or two, but new events slowly force them back in time, into a miasma of obscurity that tends to swallow them whole. Rarely, and only after an untold amount of dedication brought to the story, do the men and women history forgot, get a chance to be remembered again. Zuckoff is brilliant at being able to pluck a instance of history and bring it back to life in all it's glory. He doesn't just tell the story, he makes his readers live the story along side those he is bringing back to life within the pages of his books.
Parts of me, felt every moment these men spent on the ice. I put myself in their shoes, and I honestly don't know that I'm man enough to fill them. What they went through, the physical and mental anguish brought forth by the circumstance they found themselves in could easily break most of the men I know. I gasped out loud as men who survived a plane crash onto a desolate Arctic wasteland, who survived for untold weeks upon the ice, succumbed to the dangers all around them. Whether they were plunged into the bottomless depths of an icy crevasse, or lost for over 70 years entombed in ice after a plane coming to rescue them, is lost to a storm, I can only imagine the anguish they most of felt, right before they slipped away. It's a horror I'll never feel, but it's a horror I can now sympathize with.
The way he weaves the three crash stories together, two of which are a direct result of the first, is seamless. There is a rhythm to the events and to his narrative that carries the reader along, never allowing them to get bogged down in confusion or apathy for what they are reading. When the narrative switches to the present, where he is not only finding himself personally, but financially as well, invested in the search for the doomed rescue plane, and it's three passengers, it fits in with the rest of the story. So often, there is a jarring sense of dislocation when a historical narrative jumps time periods, Zuckoff pulls if off perfectly.
One of his fellow explorers, as they were searching for the plane in Greenland, would ask Zuckoff how the book would end. I'm not sure this book has a proper ending, and given the circumstances of what he was writing about, I think that's appropriate. I'm looking forward to discovering the end, when it happens.
What I do want to say is how much I appreciate books like this. There is so much of our history, heroic stories that seem to be forgotten in a rather short amount of time. They may capture the news of day, or even a month or two, but new events slowly force them back in time, into a miasma of obscurity that tends to swallow them whole. Rarely, and only after an untold amount of dedication brought to the story, do the men and women history forgot, get a chance to be remembered again. Zuckoff is brilliant at being able to pluck a instance of history and bring it back to life in all it's glory. He doesn't just tell the story, he makes his readers live the story along side those he is bringing back to life within the pages of his books.
Parts of me, felt every moment these men spent on the ice. I put myself in their shoes, and I honestly don't know that I'm man enough to fill them. What they went through, the physical and mental anguish brought forth by the circumstance they found themselves in could easily break most of the men I know. I gasped out loud as men who survived a plane crash onto a desolate Arctic wasteland, who survived for untold weeks upon the ice, succumbed to the dangers all around them. Whether they were plunged into the bottomless depths of an icy crevasse, or lost for over 70 years entombed in ice after a plane coming to rescue them, is lost to a storm, I can only imagine the anguish they most of felt, right before they slipped away. It's a horror I'll never feel, but it's a horror I can now sympathize with.
The way he weaves the three crash stories together, two of which are a direct result of the first, is seamless. There is a rhythm to the events and to his narrative that carries the reader along, never allowing them to get bogged down in confusion or apathy for what they are reading. When the narrative switches to the present, where he is not only finding himself personally, but financially as well, invested in the search for the doomed rescue plane, and it's three passengers, it fits in with the rest of the story. So often, there is a jarring sense of dislocation when a historical narrative jumps time periods, Zuckoff pulls if off perfectly.
One of his fellow explorers, as they were searching for the plane in Greenland, would ask Zuckoff how the book would end. I'm not sure this book has a proper ending, and given the circumstances of what he was writing about, I think that's appropriate. I'm looking forward to discovering the end, when it happens.
August 9, 2013
What an exhilarating epic this is! Of rescue attempts that boomerang and of more rescue attempts to rescue the would-be rescuers! And it is so sad of the loss of life of these altruistic individuals (and they were truly individualistic personalities) who gave the ultimate sacrifice to help those whom they had never met. It really does give one a wonderful sense of humanity.
It all takes place in Greenland – a foreboding and harsh environment – where literally every step is laden with danger. Greenland is covered with glaciers that have massive crevasses that are sometimes camouflaged by a thin layer of ice. Two of the rescuers disappeared forever into a bottomless pit. As this story well exemplifies nature in Greenland is not a trivial outdoor experience – it is a destroyer that is relentless day in and day out.
The narrative alternates between the events of World War II when these planes crashed and the present day attempts to re-locate the fallen planes and hopefully bring back the bodies. Despite the complexities of the various rescue attempts it is all logically explained by the author. And to answer the question as to why the U.S. went to Greenland during the Second World War - they wanted to get there before the Germans did! After Germany conquered Denmark (Greenland belongs to Denmark) – and then Holland, Belgium and France – both the U.S. and Britain felt it imperative to establish bases in Greenland to combat the German U-boat menace.
This book is truly a thriller and page turner – with wonderful doses of humanity!
It all takes place in Greenland – a foreboding and harsh environment – where literally every step is laden with danger. Greenland is covered with glaciers that have massive crevasses that are sometimes camouflaged by a thin layer of ice. Two of the rescuers disappeared forever into a bottomless pit. As this story well exemplifies nature in Greenland is not a trivial outdoor experience – it is a destroyer that is relentless day in and day out.
The narrative alternates between the events of World War II when these planes crashed and the present day attempts to re-locate the fallen planes and hopefully bring back the bodies. Despite the complexities of the various rescue attempts it is all logically explained by the author. And to answer the question as to why the U.S. went to Greenland during the Second World War - they wanted to get there before the Germans did! After Germany conquered Denmark (Greenland belongs to Denmark) – and then Holland, Belgium and France – both the U.S. and Britain felt it imperative to establish bases in Greenland to combat the German U-boat menace.
This book is truly a thriller and page turner – with wonderful doses of humanity!
November 19, 2013
AMAZING! Once again, as I get older, I find myself drawn to World War II accounts. In this engaging narrative, Zuckoff bounces between 1942/1943 and 2012 to retell what happened in Greenland during World War II and in Greenland in 2012. Never have I read about Greenland in World War II nor would I ever have guessed at the significance of the country until I real this book. Greenland's natural resources, political ties, and location actually made it an important base of operations. Unfortunately, it also made it incredibly dangerous for those flying through the "milk." Heartbreakingly, you learn of the first crew that went down. That story is inevitably short given that their communique ended much too quickly and they were never found. As you continue, you learn of the failed rescue attempts and of those who survived that and who did not. Each person has a shining moment with a mini biography and a wonderful epilogue. Each rescue attempt and the care the Coast Guard and Air Force took for their men was just remarkable...amazing. I admit I was partial to this part of the book. But, I also found it intriguing to discover how much maneuvering and bargaining one must do to secure funding for such expeditions. If you don't google the story and you don't know what happens, I won't ruin it for you but do yourself a favor and read this book. NEVER LEAVE A MAN BEHIND and don't leave this book behind.
February 8, 2015
The island of Greenland proves that it does not always have to be hot in hell. It is an unforgiving land with a miniscule population of Inuit Eskimos and not much else except ice and snow. Greenland was used as a stopping off point for cargo planes on their way to England while the US was still neutral in WWII and also during the war. The bases were managed by the US Coast Guard and much of their work was rescue as aircraft accidents were not uncommon. In 1942 a cargo plane went down and a B-17 goes out to rescue. Unfortunately it also crashes and three weeks later, the Coast Guard hears faint signals from the plane and decide to send out another rescue mission in a Grumman Duck which also disappears. These tragedies were not well known in military history until in 2012, when a group of dedicated men, including the author went to an isolated glacier in Greenland to find the planes and bring home the men entrapped in the ice for over 60 years.
A fascinating epic tale which flashed back and forth in time, from the crashes to the attempt to find the planes and the men in the twenty-first century. It is an xciting, informative, and poignant tale of survival and bravery. Recommended.
A fascinating epic tale which flashed back and forth in time, from the crashes to the attempt to find the planes and the men in the twenty-first century. It is an xciting, informative, and poignant tale of survival and bravery. Recommended.
January 29, 2013
4.5 stars rounded up to 5.
Another gripping tale of inspiring fortitude and courage from the author of Lost in Shangri-La, one of my all time favorite books.
This true life saga revolves around the efforts to rescue WWII American military personnel stranded in the unforgiving terrain of Greenland. That story alternates with the present day efforts to retrieve the remains of the soldiers who didn't make it.
I'm the last person in the world to be enthralled by technical descriptions of airplanes, and computers, and putting together the gear needed for a trip to arctic cold. But Zuckoff writes in a way that made me willing to follow him through such details because the payoff was his accompanying portraits of the people involved in this story. They leap off the page and you experience the highs and lows of their emotions as they experience setbacks, despair, then get back up and keep trying.
Just a thumping good read. Highly recommended.
Another gripping tale of inspiring fortitude and courage from the author of Lost in Shangri-La, one of my all time favorite books.
This true life saga revolves around the efforts to rescue WWII American military personnel stranded in the unforgiving terrain of Greenland. That story alternates with the present day efforts to retrieve the remains of the soldiers who didn't make it.
I'm the last person in the world to be enthralled by technical descriptions of airplanes, and computers, and putting together the gear needed for a trip to arctic cold. But Zuckoff writes in a way that made me willing to follow him through such details because the payoff was his accompanying portraits of the people involved in this story. They leap off the page and you experience the highs and lows of their emotions as they experience setbacks, despair, then get back up and keep trying.
Just a thumping good read. Highly recommended.
March 28, 2013
Received as an ARC via my employer Barnes & Noble. Wowee! What an adventure story, and it's all true. This book is so real in its description of the weather on Greenland that it would probably be perfect to read on a 95 degree day in July for cooling off. But the dangers are frightening!!!! It's the story of crashed aircraft during WWII, and the failed and successful missions to rescue the crews. And the modern story of a mission to recover one of the planes and the buried crew under 200' of snow and ice.
I read Mr. Zuckoff's earlier book Lost in Shangri-La and really enjoyed it. This one is just as exciting---read it in 3 days!!!
I read Mr. Zuckoff's earlier book Lost in Shangri-La and really enjoyed it. This one is just as exciting---read it in 3 days!!!
September 12, 2013
If there was a higher rating than 5 Stars, this would be a 6. The author did a terrific job of transitioning between 1942 and 2012. Between the crashes on the Greenland Icecap and the search for remains, from the life of survivors waiting for rescue, the rescue after months & the raising of funds to find and bring the Coast Guard plane & the Coasty bodies home in 2012. The awful Greenland weather has prevented the later.
I rated the book high for another reason, Bernt Balchen's part in the rescue, and giving his history in the Norwegian & American Air Forces. He included Bernts discovery that Richard Byrd could not have flown over the North pole. Time, Speed & Distance, simple math. The author also mentioned Dutch Dolleman's role in saving the lives of the B-17 crew. In 1955 I had the honor as a Polliwog, to kiss AF MSgt. Dolleman's Royal Belly Button, not having a clue til 57 years later what a hero he was.
I rated the book high for another reason, Bernt Balchen's part in the rescue, and giving his history in the Norwegian & American Air Forces. He included Bernts discovery that Richard Byrd could not have flown over the North pole. Time, Speed & Distance, simple math. The author also mentioned Dutch Dolleman's role in saving the lives of the B-17 crew. In 1955 I had the honor as a Polliwog, to kiss AF MSgt. Dolleman's Royal Belly Button, not having a clue til 57 years later what a hero he was.
January 5, 2019
A worthy follow-up to Lost in Shangri-la, with the added drama of a parallel story that follows the 2012 search for one of the missing planes. That said, this is probably enough "epic stories of survival" from Zuckoff for a while...
July 15, 2025
In a surprise to no-one who had to suffer through my Mt. Everest obsession of last year, I yet again find myself fascinated with a story of survival, escape, rescue, and recovery on icy, hostile environments. This time, it's the story of a dozen Allied servicemen during WWII who become trapped on the icy surface of Greenland, with each successive rescue attempt only leaving more men dead and stranded. I could not put this book down and found myself hungrier to read than I have in months. It's a really good, though improperly paced, survival and rescue narrative that was worth way more than the $1 I bought it for. (I love garage sales.)
Most of Zuckoff's text follows a group of men who, while trying to fly a rescue mission for a stranded plane, end up crashing themselves into the Greenland's glacial crust. Over the following months, they had to avoid deadly crevasses, stay warm and fed, defend against the awful weather, repair their communication devices and get in touch with the outside world, and maintain their sanity. In the process, at least three other rescue groups attempted to reach them, leading to more plane crashes, disappearances, deaths, and failed efforts. Zuckoff does a very good job of allowing the reader to get to know these people and you are drawn to cheer for their victories and mourn their losses. Brief glimpses of their families back home are especially emotional, and extremely effective uses of archival imagery help make the otherworldly landscape of Greenland come to life.
The book struggles most when Zuckoff changes to his modern-day sections, as he takes part in an expedition to locate the remains of the "Duck," one of the rescue planes that crashed during the effort to save the men. It deals mostly with the logistical, financial, and interpersonal challenges involved in fielding such an expedition. While it is sometimes interesting, particularly in seeing how the Coast Guard approached the effort (the branch identifies three members as MIA during WWII - one is deemed unrecoverable, the other two were on the Duck), most of these sections feel like page-fillers. Overall, I wish these sections were cut down significantly.
In summary, this was a book that absolutely captured my imagination and taught me a lot about the history of Greenland in WWII, which I knew absolutely nothing about. I couldn't put it down and I came to really care for the men at the heart of the story, as well as their families, who never stopped trying to find their kin. It's a powerful survival and rescue story without the bloat of self-help nonsense that other narratives have. I definitely recommend it to those interested in WWII, survival narratives, or similar books. I highly recommend it to my friend Kenzie, and I recommend it also to my friend Emma and my grandfather.
Most of Zuckoff's text follows a group of men who, while trying to fly a rescue mission for a stranded plane, end up crashing themselves into the Greenland's glacial crust. Over the following months, they had to avoid deadly crevasses, stay warm and fed, defend against the awful weather, repair their communication devices and get in touch with the outside world, and maintain their sanity. In the process, at least three other rescue groups attempted to reach them, leading to more plane crashes, disappearances, deaths, and failed efforts. Zuckoff does a very good job of allowing the reader to get to know these people and you are drawn to cheer for their victories and mourn their losses. Brief glimpses of their families back home are especially emotional, and extremely effective uses of archival imagery help make the otherworldly landscape of Greenland come to life.
The book struggles most when Zuckoff changes to his modern-day sections, as he takes part in an expedition to locate the remains of the "Duck," one of the rescue planes that crashed during the effort to save the men. It deals mostly with the logistical, financial, and interpersonal challenges involved in fielding such an expedition. While it is sometimes interesting, particularly in seeing how the Coast Guard approached the effort (the branch identifies three members as MIA during WWII - one is deemed unrecoverable, the other two were on the Duck), most of these sections feel like page-fillers. Overall, I wish these sections were cut down significantly.
In summary, this was a book that absolutely captured my imagination and taught me a lot about the history of Greenland in WWII, which I knew absolutely nothing about. I couldn't put it down and I came to really care for the men at the heart of the story, as well as their families, who never stopped trying to find their kin. It's a powerful survival and rescue story without the bloat of self-help nonsense that other narratives have. I definitely recommend it to those interested in WWII, survival narratives, or similar books. I highly recommend it to my friend Kenzie, and I recommend it also to my friend Emma and my grandfather.
September 10, 2020
A truly fabulous accounting of the servicemen who lost their lives, as well as those who survived, after crashing into a glacier in Greenland.
I don't read a lot of nonfiction, so at first I found myself needing to back up occasionally and re-read. It's a different thing, reading about something that actually happened--a different narrative style. But this story is so engrossing that I soon found myself "googling" the details. Absolutely amazing. It's so easy for us to forget, in this day and age, what things our grandparents and great grandparents endured for our country. This book is a stirring reminder of that sacrifice.
Highly recommend.
I don't read a lot of nonfiction, so at first I found myself needing to back up occasionally and re-read. It's a different thing, reading about something that actually happened--a different narrative style. But this story is so engrossing that I soon found myself "googling" the details. Absolutely amazing. It's so easy for us to forget, in this day and age, what things our grandparents and great grandparents endured for our country. This book is a stirring reminder of that sacrifice.
Highly recommend.
February 24, 2019
Si tratta di un reportage su una tragedia realmente accaduta durante la 2^ guerra mondiale. La narrazione si divide fra il 1942 e il 2012: il primo l'anno della tragedia, il secondo l'anno in cui fu organizzata una spedizione sui luoghi del disastro aereo. Un buon reportage, forse un po' troppo didascalico, non coinvolgente come altri che ho avuto modo di leggere (uno per tutti Aria sottile). Il mio voto: 3 stelle.
October 20, 2020
4-1/2 stars for a fascinating account of the 2012 exploration of the Greenland ice cap that solved the mystery of the crash of three WWII planes in 1942, and located the remains of the Grumman Duck, one of two military planes that attempted to rescue the survivors of the original crash. Author Mitchell Zuckoff not only wrote this book about the crashes, and the trip that located the remains of one of the planes, he helped to fund the mission to Greenland, and participated actively in the trip. The suffering and sheer terror that the stranded soldiers must have experienced is hard to imagine, but the experience is brought vividly to light by Zuckoff's excellent writing.
June 8, 2013
Have you ever read a thriller novel where extraordinary and harrowing things happen to the characters but somehow they get through it against all odds? Well, that's what it was like reading Frozen in Time, except that it's not fiction, it's the true-life thrilling story of how a handful of WWII officers crashed into the barren and frozen Ice Cap of Greenland and survived for months. The story also alternates with the present story of a quest to find the lost Grumman Duck plane and the frozen remains of three officers.
Just as he did with Lost in Shangri-La, Zuckoff once again blew me away with his writing, bringing to life through narrative prose these valiant men, their adventures, their survival stories, and their families. By the end of the book, I felt like I knew these people personally. This is the gift of Zuckoff's writing. He allows the reader to truly get to know the people he writes about—not just facts, but their hopes and dreams—making the reading experience a touching one.
I didn't know a thing about Greenland, but Zuckoff makes sure the reader understands what kind of land it is just so one could appreciate all the obstacles the survivors encountered and how miraculous their survival really was. There were several times I choked up with tears as I read about these men's self-sacrificing acts and their mental anguish.
This was a suspenseful read. I could feel the relentless cold, hear the howling wind through the many snowstorms and feel the fear as the men had to trudge through snow and watch out for hidden crevasses that were bottomless. I kept marveling at the men's resilience and ingenuity. One of the things that kept the men's hope alive was the power of prayer. Zuckoff writes that they prayed daily, stating, “There were no atheists in their ice hole.”
Zuckoff makes it clear in his note to the reader that he takes no liberties with facts, dialogue, characters, details or chronology. This nonfiction work is based on his thorough research in the form of declassified documents, maps, photographs, interviews and previously unknown journals. He also joined the expedition team that travelled to the remote glacier in Greenland in search of the lost Grumman Duck plane. He tells us firsthand all about it.
I am counting this book as a favorite of 2013. I am a big fan of Zuckoff and will read anything by him, knowing that I am in for a well-written, exciting, and grand story.
Just as he did with Lost in Shangri-La, Zuckoff once again blew me away with his writing, bringing to life through narrative prose these valiant men, their adventures, their survival stories, and their families. By the end of the book, I felt like I knew these people personally. This is the gift of Zuckoff's writing. He allows the reader to truly get to know the people he writes about—not just facts, but their hopes and dreams—making the reading experience a touching one.
I didn't know a thing about Greenland, but Zuckoff makes sure the reader understands what kind of land it is just so one could appreciate all the obstacles the survivors encountered and how miraculous their survival really was. There were several times I choked up with tears as I read about these men's self-sacrificing acts and their mental anguish.
This was a suspenseful read. I could feel the relentless cold, hear the howling wind through the many snowstorms and feel the fear as the men had to trudge through snow and watch out for hidden crevasses that were bottomless. I kept marveling at the men's resilience and ingenuity. One of the things that kept the men's hope alive was the power of prayer. Zuckoff writes that they prayed daily, stating, “There were no atheists in their ice hole.”
Zuckoff makes it clear in his note to the reader that he takes no liberties with facts, dialogue, characters, details or chronology. This nonfiction work is based on his thorough research in the form of declassified documents, maps, photographs, interviews and previously unknown journals. He also joined the expedition team that travelled to the remote glacier in Greenland in search of the lost Grumman Duck plane. He tells us firsthand all about it.
I am counting this book as a favorite of 2013. I am a big fan of Zuckoff and will read anything by him, knowing that I am in for a well-written, exciting, and grand story.
August 25, 2013
Hi,
Just ordered recently from America and I have just finished reading this incredible book.
It is called Frozen In Time by Mitchell Zuckoff.
I can not recommend this book enough, it is a biography and really autobiography as the author is very much involved in the 2012 part of the book, but the main story is in 1942/1943.
A story that touches your heart with the bravery of so many people and how the body and mind fights for life.
The story is a true story, of one plane crashing in the freezing wilderness of Greenland with five passengers and the second plane sent to help to trace this plane and five passengers. The second plane has nine passengers and this also is lost in the wilderness.
So a third plane from a coast guard ship is sent to rescue, and this also is lost on a second trip.
How so many helped on different rescue missions.
Please read, so many heroes. Also the story in 2012 of a returning to Greenland to search and recover the planes.
Highly recommended.
regards
Sean
Just ordered recently from America and I have just finished reading this incredible book.
It is called Frozen In Time by Mitchell Zuckoff.
I can not recommend this book enough, it is a biography and really autobiography as the author is very much involved in the 2012 part of the book, but the main story is in 1942/1943.
A story that touches your heart with the bravery of so many people and how the body and mind fights for life.
The story is a true story, of one plane crashing in the freezing wilderness of Greenland with five passengers and the second plane sent to help to trace this plane and five passengers. The second plane has nine passengers and this also is lost in the wilderness.
So a third plane from a coast guard ship is sent to rescue, and this also is lost on a second trip.
How so many helped on different rescue missions.
Please read, so many heroes. Also the story in 2012 of a returning to Greenland to search and recover the planes.
Highly recommended.
regards
Sean
June 13, 2020
An extremely hard book for me to rate. This is my 4th Zuckoff book , and my least favorite.
In 1942 an Army cargo plane crashed into the ice caps of Greenland. During a search and rescue, two additional planes crashed. This is the story of locating and trying to save the men caught in the brutal weather of Greenland's winter. In addition Zuckoff writes about a 2012 expedition, he was a part of, that went searching for one of those planes and the 3 Americans that died there. The stories alternate, as all duel story line books, chapter to chapter. The 1943 story held me captive. There were moments I cried for the men caught up in this disaster. I hated moving onto the current day story. That piece of it dragged for me, and I really disliked some of the people involved. Which of course is not the authors fault. I love Zuckoff's story telling, I just had issues with that piece of it especially
As I said, a hard one to rate. I am going to up it on GR's to 4 stars, but if I could stick with 3 1/2 I would.
In 1942 an Army cargo plane crashed into the ice caps of Greenland. During a search and rescue, two additional planes crashed. This is the story of locating and trying to save the men caught in the brutal weather of Greenland's winter. In addition Zuckoff writes about a 2012 expedition, he was a part of, that went searching for one of those planes and the 3 Americans that died there. The stories alternate, as all duel story line books, chapter to chapter. The 1943 story held me captive. There were moments I cried for the men caught up in this disaster. I hated moving onto the current day story. That piece of it dragged for me, and I really disliked some of the people involved. Which of course is not the authors fault. I love Zuckoff's story telling, I just had issues with that piece of it especially
As I said, a hard one to rate. I am going to up it on GR's to 4 stars, but if I could stick with 3 1/2 I would.
July 8, 2014
INTERESTING, INFORMATIVE AND CONFUSING.
Who knew there were so many—and so deadly—airplane crashes in Greenland during a one month period in the early 1940s? Five, at least, I think; if my count is close to accurate. So many crashes, with so many people involved, it got awfully confusing to follow the who, when and where of this audio book. Compound this confusion with a whole new (humongous) cast of characters for a recovery attempt (of one of the five planes from the original story) some seventy years later, and some of this story might well have been written/read in Norwegian or Inuit for all I could follow. Maybe they 'should have' recruited Jon Krakauer to tell this one.
Recommendation: FROZEN IN TIME: An Epic Story of Survival and a Modern Quest for Lost Heroes of World War II, by Mitchell Zuckoff is an interesting adventure/rescue/recovery tale—but not as readable as Zuckoff's, Lost in Shangri-La.
Overdrive MP3 Audiobook, 8 hours, 47 minutes
Who knew there were so many—and so deadly—airplane crashes in Greenland during a one month period in the early 1940s? Five, at least, I think; if my count is close to accurate. So many crashes, with so many people involved, it got awfully confusing to follow the who, when and where of this audio book. Compound this confusion with a whole new (humongous) cast of characters for a recovery attempt (of one of the five planes from the original story) some seventy years later, and some of this story might well have been written/read in Norwegian or Inuit for all I could follow. Maybe they 'should have' recruited Jon Krakauer to tell this one.
Recommendation: FROZEN IN TIME: An Epic Story of Survival and a Modern Quest for Lost Heroes of World War II, by Mitchell Zuckoff is an interesting adventure/rescue/recovery tale—but not as readable as Zuckoff's, Lost in Shangri-La.
Overdrive MP3 Audiobook, 8 hours, 47 minutes
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