The untold story of Leon Crane, the only surviving crew member of a World War II B-24 crash on a remote mountain near the Arctic Circle, who managed to stay alive 81 days in sub-zero temperature by making peace with nature, and end his ordeal by walking along a river to safety. Part World War II story, part Alaskan adventure story, part survival story, and even part inspirational story, this is what we call ” a good read.” This is the first full length retelling of Crane’ s incredible survivalist story. It has been noted in magazines and in story collections over the years: most notably, just after the war ended, Crane’ s story was included in a book aptly titled, The 100 Best True Stories of World War II , and in the 1970s, the story was a part of John McPhee’ s hot-selling collection of Alaskan survival tales, Coming into the Country. The author suggests that we think Jon Krakauer’ s Into the Wild ” meets” Alfred Lansing’ s Endurance . I would suggest that we also think Dick Proenneke’ s Alone in the Wilderness ” meets” Slavomir Rawicz’ s The Long Walk . These meetings can go on and on; but there are some very impressive WWII survival stories that have become bestselling books– even with previously ” untold” and ” unknown” stories, like Crane’ s.

A story of tragedy at sea where every desperate act meant life or death

The small ship making the Liverpool-to-New York trip in the early months of 1856 carried mail, crates of dry goods, and more than one hundred passengers, mostly Irish emigrants. Suddenly an iceberg tore the ship asunder and five lifeboats were lowered. As four lifeboats drifted into the fog and icy water, never to be heard from again, the last boat wrenched away from the sinking ship with a few blankets, some water and biscuits, and thirteen souls. Only one would survive. This is his story.

As they started their nine days adrift more than four hundred miles off Newfoundland, the castaways–an Irish couple and their two boys, an English woman and her daughter, newlyweds from Ireland, and several crewmen, including Thomas W. Nye from Fairhaven, Massachusetts–began fighting over food and water. One by one, though, day by day, they died. Some from exposure, others from madness and panic. In the end, only Nye and the ship’s log survived.

Using Nye’s firsthand descriptions and later newspaper accounts, ship’s logs, assorted diaries, and family archives, Brian Murphy chronicles the horrific nine days that thirteen people suffered adrift on the cold gray Atlantic. Adrift brings readers to the edge of human limits, where every frantic decision and desperate act is a potential life saver or life taker.