A sunken submarine, wartime Germany and Air Force spouses are the subjects chosen by the latest Alexandria authors to be published.
IN “LAUGHTER WASN’T RATIONED,” Dorothea von Schwanenflügel Lawson recalls what it was like living in Germany during two World Wars. This poignant recollection reads like a novel, with most readers thinking they know the ending.
Yet unless one has really studied the history of Germany during and after World War II, what happened to middle and upper-class Germans may come as a surprise to many.
While most people realize the horrors endured during HItler’s regime, what may come as a surprise to many were the continuing travesties suffered long after the war was over — for both Jews and non-Jews.
Lawson spares no details, drawing on her recollections and the diaries of both her best friend and her first husband. She describes fighting the never-ending hunger due to rationing and shortages by taking very dangerous trips to the country to barter or buy food. There are vivid pictures of the air-raid strikes, scrambling to safety in shelters, yet risking safety by staying above to iron clothes because that was the only time the power was on.
It seemed that their hardships would never end. When the war was over, the Russians came in, and there were accounts of the brutal raping of women and destruction of the city. Even when the long-anticipated Americans came in, there was not much to celebrate. Times were still hard because most Americans assumed that all Germans were Nazis, when in reality most of them had been forced into joining the party. Fifteen years after the war ended, there was still destruction, red tape, hunger and depression.
Yet, throughout it all, Lawson and her family remained strong. Their spirit and humor carried them through, despite tremendous adversity and loss.
The book even includes some of the jokes that were being tossed about during the period. She did this because she felt that one joke could capture a full page of description and give some levity to an otherwise grave situation.
“When I wrote the book, it was somewhat painful, but our family life was fantastic. You find out who your real friends are. I’m not bitter. Other people may be discontented, but I enjoy every day and every sunshine.”
When the Soviets started building the Berlin Wall, Lawson took her two daughters to the United States, leaving her husband behind. It was something that she felt she had to do, and she does not regret it.
When she first came to the states, they lived in California, but she moved to Alexandria when she married her second husband in the ‘60s and has been here ever since.
Lawson graduated from Georgetown University in 1968 and taught there and at other universities. It was her students and friends who prompted her to start writing down her recollections. After a series of mishaps, including friends who tried to claim her work as their own, she finally published the story in June 2000. A second edition was released last year, and the book is available through local bookstores and Amazon.com. Autographed copies can be purchased through the publisher, www.tricorpress.com. For more information, call 703-329-8328.
SCHUYLER KROPF LEFT ALEXANDRIA, VA., in 1987 to pursue a journalism career in Charleston, S.C. It was in 1995 in the newsroom of The Post and Courier when he first became hooked on the story about the raising of a Civil War submarine from the ocean floor.
Five years later, a tremendous amount of research and a collaborative effort with writer Brian Hicks produced “Raising the Hunley: The Remarkable History and Recovery of the Lost Confederate Submarine.”
Kropf is a graduate of Fort Hunt High School and returns home to the Mount Vernon area to visit his family members, who still live there. Yet his heart is in Charleston, and he has been a senior political reporter with The Post and Courier for many years. He’s also been a history buff most of his life, so the interest in the Hunley is not a surprise.
What is a surprise is how detailed a story he and Hicks wrote about the lives of the people involved with building and manning this submarine.
“We wanted to do a narrative instead of a history book. We were trying to tell a story about the people involved with the submarine.”
The Hunley was the first attack submarine ever used in military engagement. Built in 1862, it had two unsuccessful runs before torpedoing a Yankee ship in 1864. It wasn’t seen again until it was raised from Charleston Harbor on Aug. 8, 2000.
The building of the vessel was spearheaded by Horace Lawson Hunley, a wealthy plantation owner from New Orleans. It was hoped that the South could use it to break the stranglehold the Union blockade had on Charleston.
The book talks about the men who built the ship. It relates what’s known about the lives of the men who served as the first two crews, including Hunley, who went down in the second test run.
It pieces together the last hours of the third and final crew, who, risking their lives, launched a torpedo into the side of the Housatonic and disappeared.
For years, the whereabouts of the craft was a mystery, even more so because for years historians thought that the remains of the Hunley were in close proximity to the sunken Housatonic.
Over the years, several men spent much time and money trying to locate it. Where they all went wrong was thinking that it lay between the shore and where the Housatonic had gone down. Where it was ultimately found was seaward of the Housatonic.
Bringing the Hunley to shore was almost as hard as finding it. For five years after it was finally found, many battles were fought over who had ownership of it, how best to preserve it and who would be responsible for raising it.
Fortunately, everything conspired so that when it was raised, it was incredibly intact. Covered by a layer of mud, the vessel had been sealed so that the crew members were found still seated at their posts. Although the bodies were decomposed, Kropf said that the brains were perfectly intact, unlike any other find of its kind. Scientists continue to study the brain matter as well as the artifacts on the ship.
“Groups are putting their data together to try to determine a logical reason for the sinking,” said Kropf. “NASA’s also interested in testing a bottle full of air, which they feel would give them an insight into the atmospheric conditions of that period.”
“Raising the Hunley” is available at local bookstores and through Amazon.com. No book-signing is currently scheduled for Alexandria, but Kropf will be at the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, Va., on Thursday, May 2, at 5:30 p.m. For more information, call 212-782-8426.
AFTER SPENDING MANY YEARS as an Air Force spouse, Paulette K. Johnson felt that she was well-equipped to talk about it. Using some of her own experiences and stories related by fellow spouses, she put together “Wings of Our Own: Heroes, Happenings and History of Air Force Spouses.”
“I was always asked what it was like to be an Air Force wife. It’s so hard to explain, so I thought it would be better to do it with stories.”
The tales of military life are heartwarming and uplifting and can be readily understood, even by civilians. With multiple moves and time left to fend for themselves, Air Force spouses relied on each other, and their wit, to get them through the tough times.
There are stories about the contributions made by these spouses, many of whom were overlooked. One woman, Helen Eubank, wife of Maj. Gen. Gene Eubank, put in 2,000 hours as a Red Cross aide during World War II. Nancy Harkness married Robert Love and went on to become the director of the Women’s Auxiliary Ferry Squadron, otherwise known as WAFS.
Johnson said it took her three years to compile the information. “It kind of evolved. At first it was going to be more historical, but it evolved into being a collection of stories.”
Johnson continues to collect stories and may do another edition in the future. She’s also thinking about writing a book about children growing up in all services.
“Wings of Our Own” is available through Amazon.com or by calling 703-212-0005.