Customer Reviews

Greenland's Icy Fury (Williams-Ford Texas A&M University Military History Series)

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This is a fascinating account of a little known aspect of world war II - tracking and predicting the weather that could make or break a military campaign in Europe, and the daily life of the men who spent a portion of the war in an isolated outpost in Greenland where some of those predictions were made. The author paints wonderful images of his time spent as part of this eclectic group of soldiers, each picked for a special skill that was needed for the group as a whole to live, work, and survive in the Greenland environment for over a year. Photographs also complement the descriptions. My only minor "complaint" about the book is that sometimes the author got a little too descriptive on the science of geology and weather, and from reading a book for it's historical perspective, wading through scientific detail detracted from the portion of the account I was most interested in.

This book is an absorbing account of the key role that Greenland played during World War II. As a military outpost, a group of men provided critical weather data to guide allied forces in their aerial assaults against the encroaching German military in northern Europe. The book is also an admiringly-told natural history and geology of the earth's largest icy island. The author, a highly respected geologist, waxes poetic about the incredible Greenland geology but also provides both a humorous and harrowing account of two years of a young man's life a frozen dramatic world. The stories include transportation via dog sleds and skiing amidst deep frozen cravasses, the interaction with the Inuit Eskimos, the intense blizzards that filled a room through a key hole, as well as a glimpse at the pre-global warming world of Greenland. Fascinating! Highly recommended.