Enemy On Our Shores — By Roger Thiel Watch this site for progress — Coming soon!

“ENEMY ON OUR SHORES” AN ADVENTURE STORY OF “WORLD WAR II’S MOST IMPROBABLE AIR FORCE” – THE CAP COASTAL PATROL With over 50 more illustrations and photos.

 

YOU ARE THERE – in a small civilian lightplane – never designed to hold the bomb now bolted underneath it – flying out over the dangerous world of the wartime Atlantic Ocean – far beyond any safety limit – away from technology and into a primitive, alternate world – of intense personal confront and classic overwater pathfinding – navigating in low visibility by “reading” waves and ship wakes – and searching restlessly for an invading German U-boat – by weight, over 500 times bigger than your aircraft. A gripping adventure story of CAP anti-sub patrol, with many further historic observations. (Con’t.)

AN ADVENTURE STORY, BASED ON THE TRUE FACTS OF THIS UNEARTHED CAP HISTORICAL “NUGGET” OF WORLD WAR II -- ARMED CIVILIANS -- LEAVING TECHNOLOGY BEHIND AND FINDING THEIR WAY BY PRIMITIVE NAVIGATION --- FAR BEYOND ANY SAFETY LIMIT – OVER THE DANGEROUS WWII ATLANTIC OCEAN! _______

Excerpts from the text of “Enemy On Our Shores” (subject to change): Arching up in blunt civilian defiance, the Fairchild sits in its tiedown space, recumbent on its tailwheel, as if with the flat objective of conquering today’s sky. Its bomb also slants up on line. The overall image is like a boxer sitting at the corner of the ring, brooding and dangerous, poised for action. The “uncle with the shotgun” is still a noble, but jarring image.

* * *

We fly further out into the primitive, the sky a big blue canopy over us, the day polished to a high glimmer. The ocean is a presence that envelops everything. The sea extends to, and becomes, the very curvature of the earth. We are not so much flying over the sea as we are contained within it. The ocean glares up at us, stark and ageless. It is more than huge. It is a relentless presence, an everything. It is just there. It just is.

* * *

This is an empire: an alternate world, huge and primal, raw and fascinating. We fly over floating debris, leaping porpoises, discolorations that might be whales or might be invading submarines, wisps of smoke on the horizon, and “cat’s paws” of terrified little fish. And all of this takes place amidst the tiresome, jiggling images of the binocular lenses, a radio with one channel, the immense chatterings of our Fairchild aircraft, and the huge roar of the engine.

* * *

This is a mental game, a confront with self. Our danger requires extreme reserves of concentration. Again I strain to the dark surface below us. The ocean does not want to give up its secrets. This is a very serious game of hide and seek. And it is for “keeps.”

* * *

As I push the stick forward into a dive, toward the slender shaft sticking up from the ocean, hero-images fling themselves to me: of a homefront guardian, galloping to war on his flying steed, now about to rid United States waters of a terrible, dark, vengeful killer. This marauding intruder that kills civilian ships will be destroyed, poetically, by a civilian.

* * *

With less than a mile of visibility, I strive to relate every wave-top-clue, every ship wake, to all others, as if on some enormous game board. Only the ocean buoys are stationary. This is a furious imposition of mind-data, extreme but exhilarating. The antiseptic lure of an instrument simulator, and its stale world of scopes and dials, briefly flashes across my mind but quickly passes. My own computation system is now vast, and in this primitive intensity there is a curious liberation. My thoughts and instincts are clean. Our lives are of huge importance, or they are of no importance at all. Take your pick. Our here, raw survival is thrashed out as merchant mariners live in constant peril of a torpedo, fish flee for their lives from other fish, and one of the world’s best aviators, Lindbergh himself, did not use fuel gauges. Our situation is primitive and dire, but in it, I feel a strange vitality.

With this unique CAP duty, I have left behind a thousand lower versions of myself.