Neil Hanson (1) (1948–)

The Custom of the Sea by Sean Hanson is the harrowing tale of four men who were left adrift at sea after being forced to abandon the Mignonette, which was suck by a "freak" 60 ft wave. Captain Tom Dudley had been hired to sail the old "but sturdy" yacht to Sydney, Australia from Southampton in May 1884. Accompanying him were mate Edwin Stephens, cook Edmund Brooks, and cabin boy Richard Parker. On July 5, while fighting a terrible gale, the keel is ripped asunder. The men had only 5 minutes to scramble into their lifeboat. It was a 13ft dinghy, and the only supplies they managed to grab were two tins of turnips, a chronometer and a baling bucket. After 19 days at sea, the men suffer from severe sunburns, malnutrition, dehydration and excruciating sores. Then, in desperation, Parker drinks sea water, putting him into a delirious coma. The other three, near death themselves, decide to mercy kill Parker and perform "the custom of the sea." On day 24, they are finally rescued and returned to Falmouth. However, a jury must then decide if what they did was murder or a necessity...

I really enjoyed Hanson's writing style and their ability to build a personality for each victim without stretching the truth. There's a lot of nautical terminology and jargon throughout, but I don't think that this slows down the narrative in any way. Dudley was surprisingly candid about what he and his men had done, which leads me to believe that the men weren't exactly plotting Parker's demise.. Dudley took pity on Parker, treating him kindly otherwise, which makes this story particularly tragic. The chapter on the sinking itself was very intense and well done. The image of the men clinging to the rigging as the wave hit will stick with me for a while.… (mais)

With all the WW II escape stories and resulting books, I have never really thought about all the POW's held by all sides in WW I. This volume brought it to me clearly and with vigour. This volume focuses on British Empire soldiers from Britain and the colonies who were captured by Germany and its allies.

As in WW II, the blockade of Europe and specifically Germany led to shortages of everything including food. Thus it is understandable that Germany found it difficult to properly feed 1000's of prisoners when it could not feed its own people. The Red Cross packages and family provided parcels sent by POW's families kept the prisoners alive and apparently many of their guards who stole from the packages.

This book concentrates on the story of Holzminden Prison Camp which was run by a psychopath named Hauptmann Karl "Milwaukee Bill" Niemeyer described by someone as the personification of hate. His treatment of the POW's was cruel and inhuman and what we saw repeated twenty years later under the Nazi regime in WW II.

The title of the book is about a mass escape from this prison which became known as the first Great Escape. The ingenuity of the men to overcome so many difficulties in digging the tunnel and keeping it a secret for such a long period of time is amazing. After the escape, the Germans forced prisoners to did up the tunnel so they could discover where the entrance to it was because the prisoners had hidden it so completely the Germans were unable to find it.… (mais)