Torpedoed!: A World War II Story of a Sinking Passenger Ship and Two Children's Survival at Sea
xii PRoloGUE Florence and Mary Kelly spent the summer of 1939 on the British Isle of Man Library of Congress LOT 13415 no 701 LC-DIG-ppmsc-08688 conditions along with the constant fear that they might never make it ashore Throughout the night they bobbed on the vast Atlantic Ocean where as one survivor put it every wave is your enemy What had caused the explosion Some thought it was simply a mechanical problem But everyone was think ing about the announcement of war between Great Brit ain and Germany just hours before And some passengers said they had seen a submarine lurking on the surface of the water just before the explosion occurred Florence
PRoloGUE xiii thought it might have been an attack by an enemy plane yet she hadn’t noticed anything in the skies at the time If there were enemy subs or planes in the area were the lifeboats safe Had the captain had time to send a radio call for help As the night wore on distant lights pierced the hori zon and ominous shapes loomed in the distance The survivors crammed in the lifeboats worried about the advancing forms were they friendly rescue vessels or enemy attackers If the approaching lights and shapes were friendly crafts where would they take the survivors Back to Europe where war had broken out Would the survi vors be stranded unable to go home to America until the war ended If the approaching shapes were enemy ships what would the people on board do to the survivors Fire upon the helpless lifeboats Capture them and send them to prisoner-of-war camps What did the future hold for Russell and Florence Would they ever again see their friends and families back home in America
kid’s world a The kids of Cleveland Ohio were abuzz with excite ment in May 1939 A new comic strip starring a hero called Superman began appearing in newspapers around the country for the first time The comic featured some one everyone could look up to and the Superman char acter was the creation of two young hometown fellows Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster Stella Walsh a 1936 Olym pic track star and Cleveland resident was doggedly training for the 100-meter and 200-meter races and the broad jump for the upcoming 1940 Olympics in Fin land People who had been at her house claimed Stella a Polish immigrant already had over 600 trophies and medals from world competitions stacked up in her bed room Zealous Cleveland Indians baseball fans looked 1
