Dawn of Infamy: A Sunken Ship, a Vanished Crew, and the Final Mystery of Pearl Harbor
By: Stephen Harding / Narrated By: Richard Ferrone
Length: 8 hrs and 39 mins
First half? DULL! Second half? NOW we’re getting somewhere… Then? Over…?!?
Seriously, the first half of this book, Dawn of Infamy, coulda been pruned down, like, a LOT! If you have problems at all with this book, most likely it’s going to come from there.
‘Twould appear that author Stephen Harding just HAD to put down every single little thing he learned about the lumber hauling ship, named the Cynthia Olson for the latter part of her seafaring career, and I’m thinking that maybe it’s because there’s so little source material around tracking this little known incident that occurred just as… or maybe, tantalizingly, before?… Pearl Harbor was attacked.
Harding starts us off with the Cynthia Olson’s family line, as in: aaaallll her sister ships, her specific measurements, who-all owned her, how many times she set sail/was used, where she languished, her decreasing going price, how she was finally on this that the other occasion sold for $10 and so on and so forth. Then we get verrrrrry detailed histories of the men who owned her, who co-owned her and how those co-owners got along with each other. Then there are the men who sailed her and all THEIR histories, including dates and places of birth. When we get around to her final voyage at sea, Harding tells us exACTly who was listed as crew, where they were from, who their designated beneficiaries were, and how most of them were unknowns as they were from the Philippines except for two military members who probably bonded with each other. On the days of her voyage, we’re told that those two probably hung around with each other, in the radio room which was of such and such dimensions, and of how they probably talked about women, and sports, etc etc et-freaking-c.
All this makes for some yawning and some wandering of mind. I had to reeeeally pay attention when all of the crew’s names and next of kin were noted cuz it took me a bit of time, in my exceeeeedingly bored state, to realize that these were men of dignity, of hopes and dreams, who died and are now lost to history. I had to really dig deep to dredge up some emotion cuz when you think about it, it’s really quite sad…
The vessel was on her way to deliver lumber to Honolulu to meet the needs of a quickly growing army/naval base when it had a run-in with I-26, a submarine of the Imperial Japanese Navy. The captain of the submarine says he saw the vessel, fired warning shots and gave the crew time to get on and depart in lifeboats, and then it summarily fired on her and sank her.
Neither the Cynthia Olson nor any of her crew was seen again, even tho’ she managed to get an SOS out, and a Canadian ship looked for her hours after that message.
Jump forward to an intrepid journalist in 1966 who tells a rapt audience of her doomed voyage, and who asks: Exactly what time was she sunk? Could it have been BEFORE the first bombs fell on Pearl Harbor? Could it have been an even more treacherous act coming not during the flagrant act of war, and could it, possibly, have given those at Pearl Harbor much needed time/a heads up? Further, the journalist goes on: Just what happened to the crew? This is where things started getting interesting for me. EsPECially after having listened to audiobooks like Unbroken and 438 Days, I’ve become really twitchy when it comes to thinking of people stranded out at sea, provisions dwindling, hope diminishing, survivors scanning the skies, the horizon with ever-growing despair.
-BUT-
Harding offers four possibilities, and what ALL of it comes down to (Except for dogged reporting pinpointing the time of attack) is the best guess. THEN the book kinda oozes towards boredom again as we hear of how life was for the families of the crew, their trials and tribulations, their red-letter days, the dates of their deaths. And again, not much known about the families of the Filipino crew members, but a LOT known about the next of kin for both military guys. At least Harding posits this in reference to how bad things got in the Philippines and not so much as men from there just didn’t matter as much, so my (wholly unfortunate) sense of moral outrage wasn’t piqued toooo much, cuz I can be annoying like that.
Now we get to the narration. Okay, Richard Ferrone did the best that he could with material such as it was. He tried to infuse it all with drama and enthusiasm, but there’s only so much thrill you can add when you’re relaying the exact measurements of the hull, of just how much a ship can carry, or of how one co-owner was incensed when the ships were painted a dashing green. Add to that? Oh. My. GOSH. The audio production was oh so lamentable. I kinda NEVER put in my reviews the whole: Kept jumping back and forth tones of sound cuz, really! I mean, I exPECt that to happen as mistakes are re-recorded and tone is bound to be different. But gosh, was this all over the place! Muted here for one sentence, blaring and clear the next, muted again, blaring again. Finally, I just decided to ignore it… until I couldn’t… at which point… it makes it here into this review. So Booooooo woeful audio production! I mean, poor Ferrone was doing his best, and the constant cutting didn’t serve his struggle well.
So all in all, really rather uneven execution in a lot of areas. But?
Well, gosh. It pretty much made me sad,
Hope diminishing, scanning the skies and horizon. Ever-growing despair.
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