Shipping Weight: 0.6 kg

In the snowy predawn of February 18, 1942, a convoy of three American ships zigzagged up the North Atlantic toward Newfoundland, heading for one of the worst disasters in naval history.

The ships were under radio silence to protect their position from the threat of German U-boats. A storm was raging, visibility was zero, and the currents had turned wildly unpredictable. With only unreliable soundings to guide them across the jagged ocean floor, all three vessels ran aground on the sheer rock coast of Newfoundland.

Attempts to carry lifelines ashore were thwarted by heavy surf, cold, oil slicks, and floating wreckage. A few sailors, however, overcame the odds and managed to reach the coast where the communities of Lawn and St. Lawrence effected a superhuman rescue operation.

Two hundred and three American sailors died as the Wilkes, the Pollux, and the Truxtun were battered against the icy shore by the treacherous North Atlantic. And those who survived would return home to receive not a hero's welcome but the harsh interrogation of their naval superiors.

"Cassie Brown has done an awesome job. Her long and meticulous task of preparation has paid off in a finished work that everybody interested in Newfoundland, in the sea, and indeed in people, should be glad to own."
      Saturday Night

"If anyone wants a story of tragedy and death, of suffering and endurance, of indecision and ruthlessness, this is it."
      Chronicle-Herald

"Miss Brown has a skill for isolating the most dramatic events and making them come alive…"
      The Globe and Mail

"Another exciting addition to Canadian maritime history…a tragedy of classic proportions. Fascinating reading."
     Vancouver Province

Read an excerpt from Standing Into Danger