Escape from Archangel: An American Merchant Seaman at War

A remarkable tale of true adventure, this is the story of O. M. (Jac) Smith, who served aboard a WW II U.S. civilian merchant ship slated to be leased to the Russians. When Ceder Creek docked at Archangel in the Soviet Union after surviving an attack on a convoy which lost a third of its ships, Smith and two other Americans aboard were arrested as ``foreign troublemakers'' and sent to a labor camp. He escaped, was helped by Laplanders, who placed him under the protection of the Norwegian underground; Smith's land trek had covered 900 miles of frozen territory. The Norwegians ferried him to Scotland and he returned to the U.S. in 1944 to sail as a merchant seaman for another 30 years before retiring in Mississippi. A suspenseful account of courage and the will to survive, told by the author of The Brown Condor. (Nov.)