Rings of Fire
How an Unlikely Team of Scientists, Ex-Cons, Women, and Native Americans Helped Win World War II
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Average rating5
15
How an Unlikely Team of Scientists, Ex-Cons, Women, and Native Americans Helped Win World War II
Ratings1
Average rating5
Edwin Land had barely settled into his seat on the plane when the flash went off. An idea for an innovative WWII technology that might help eradicate the fascist cancer devouring the free world. It was Polaroid’s Optical Ring Sight, which magically projected a bullseye of brilliantly colored rings onto the sky—like rings of fire—to aim American antiaircraft guns that previously “couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn.”
Rings of Fire is the compelling story of American ingenuity, determination, and grit—told through the personal stories of the amazing people who transformed insight into gunsight. From scientists to ordinary Americans to drifters and ex-cons characterized as “the underbelly of America,” they crossed cultural barriers to tackle a shared crisis:
California “desert rat” artist, John Hilton, whose mining claim supplied the calcite crystals desperately needed for the device, assisted by Gen. George S. Patton.
Miners Steve Modesto and John Owens, a Cahuilla Indian ranch hand and a white meat-cutter from Kansas, whose friendship led to an astonishing discovery.
Moonshiner Al Hansen, whose calcite prospecting in Montana started with a lucky strike but cascaded into a wild-west vigilante showdown.
“Crystal Crackin’ Mama” Irene Frederick, whose calcite-crystal processing skills silenced male skeptics and helped rescue the Polaroid project from disaster.
Edwin Stanton, whose hubris led to a fat FBI dossier and tragedy while prospecting in Mexico.
Cecil Kegans, a rough Oklahoman with a huge smile, starting his Marine career by fetching groceries for calcite miners and ending it in a bloody pool on Saipan.
And miner Harry Sikkenga, whose fist fight with a shift boss packed him off to the army artillery, just in time to invade Germany and encounter the horror of Dachau.
Teamed together, they overcame enormous personal obstacles to produce ring sights for Navy ships, aircraft, and Army bazookas. And afterwards, their product went from aiming the guns of war to the cameras of peacetime—for television and on the helmets of skydiving videographers. And then, all the way to the moon, aiming NASA’s space cameras, culminating with perhaps the most influential photograph of all time, Earthrise.
Larry Hughes unfolds this gripping, never-told story with accessible explanations of the science and the art behind the project, but always lets the colorful characters drive a warm and vivid adventure.
Reviews with the most likes.
Winding Tale Of Americans Coming Together To Capture The Earth. Why does every nonfiction book about the American side of WWII these days have to proclaim that whatever it is talking about "helped win WWII"???? Because let's face it - with many things, such a claim is tenuous at best, and perhaps the most glaring weakness of this text is that while the calcite is shown to be an important tool of the war, it is never truly established how it "helped win" the war. Indeed, the book as written does a far superior job of establishing how this calcite crystal that everything in the book revolves around was crucial in capturing "Earthrise", the famed Apollo-era shot of the Earth from orbit around the moon, than it does in establishing how this particular technology "helped win WWII".
Beyond the criticism of the subtitle though, this truly was a well documented examination of how a group of Americans that couldn't actively fight in the war - though some later did just that - still found a remarkable and obscure way to contribute to the overall war effort. Essential, during times of total war such as WWII. It also shows how these people - and the Polaroid Company - would advance knowledge of optics and sights to levels unknown before, and how such advances really did need such a wildly disparate group of people all around the country to work together to achieve a common goal.
Ultimately, this book is about teamwork and the "can-do" spirit that American propagandists of this and later eras were so ardently promoting - even into the modern era, in some circles - as much as it is the science and tech of the calcite and optics. So take that for what you will, though I will say that this book never actually feels like a propaganda piece. If anything, it feels so *real*, like you're actually there as these events are happening. That is clearly thanks to Hughes' research as well as the way he chose to write this narrative, and speaks well for his abilities in both arenas.
Overall an interesting book with perhaps a few quibbles here and there, but one esoteric enough that few (relatively, at least) will likely read it - even though it really does show a glimpse of an America and Americans rarely seen in reporting of this era. Very much recommended.
Originally posted at bookanon.com.
