Apr 8

Written by: Joe Longo
Tuesday, April 08, 2008 

Our city is fortunate to have so many local creative writers. Meet two of them April 12 from 1pm to 3pm at the Victoria Avenue Library. Autographed copies of their four recent books are for sale. The books are in the library collection and may be borrowed.

Mary Friesen’s first book "Renascentur : the datebooks of Ransom Goring, 1867-1869" delved into the life in the Niagara Region through the writings of a young man and his journal. Much is elaborated about early family life and those who study family genealogy will find many early families and their interactions noted with births, deaths and marriages listed.

“Niagara seasons : photographs, paintings and text” is a stunning collection of colour photographs of our region and gives a glimpse of Mary’s many artistic talents. An exhibition of her paintings will be held in October in the Rosberg Gallery and Mary will be painting this afternoon while talking to the public about her books.

“Home from here : reflections on grief, memory and home” chronicles her mother’s decline and death where “the result of this journey through place and memory is at times sad, often humourous, and frequently thought-provoking”.

James Martindale just published “Slaying the beast : the four-year struggle to sink Germany's largest battleship, the Tirpitz.”

During the course of World War II, Great Britain waged an un-ceasing battle to neutralize the Tirpitz, one of the biggest threats to the hundreds of convoys vitally needed to keep the war effort against the Third Reich going.

Hitler banned any of his capital ships from venturing out into the Atlantic to attack enemy commerce. Instead the ship would be sent to Norway where for four years she would remain a constant thorn in the side of the Royal Navy.

Many daring missions were undertaken to sink the Tirpitz or deny bases that the battleship could use, and involved some ingenious-and often untested-weapons which could be more dangerous to the men who operated them rather than the Tirpitz herself including midget submarines, human torpedoes, commando raids, and carrier based air strikes.

Some succeeded in crippling her for short periods of time, but it was not until the morning of November 12th, 1944 that the beast was finally brought to bay. Gigantic armour piercing bombs dropped from RAF multi engine bombers rained down on the battleship, and succeeded where so many had failed.