Undaunted by Thomas William Simpson

Undaunted by Thomas William Simpson

The year was 1933, and a severe economic depression had devastated the United States. The stock market had collapsed. Unemployment was rampant.

Amidst such widespread misery, an intrepid young pilot named Jimmie Mattern set out to become the first pilot to circumnavigate the globe solo. An unceasing optimist, Jimmie believed his flight, if successful, could lift the hope and spirits of a struggling nation. Instead, Jimmie was the one who would need hope just to make it home alive.

On June 3, 1933, Jimmie and his Lockheed Vega rose joyfully into the sky to chase glory. He wouldn't set foot on American soil again for eight grueling weeks, after a crash in the Siberian wilderness tested his renowned cheerfulness and storied ability to survive. His quest, fraught with brutal weather, mechanical and fuel emergencies, hunger, sleep deprivation, and injury, made him a legend and an international celebrity in his time.

Undaunted is the captivating true story of the spirited, intrepid aviation pioneer who inspired the countless daring pilots and astronauts who came after him. A consummate adventurer, Jimmie Mattern was seemingly impervious to pain or despair. After every misfortune, he climbed right back into the cockpit and set his sights on the next horizon-unafraid and unfaltering.

I could have written the first half of Annie's War as nonfiction. It is not an exact account of that time and place, but virtually all of the major events and characters in the story are part of Simpson family history. We are a family long interested in our personal narrative. As kids we were taught to look to the past to prepare for the future. My father knew a man who fought in the Civil War. That man was his grandfather, James Randolph Simpson, the role model for James Raymond Ralston in Annie's War. James Randolph fought at the Battle of Antietam, where he was shot in the belly and nearly died save for the intervention of his sister, Annie, who gives her name to this story. My father and my Aunt Elizabeth heard the family history, and the stories of the Civil War, directly from their grandfather, who lived through the carnage. A generation later, my father and my aunt passed those same stories on to me and my siblings. I must've heard the story of JR getting shot at Antietam a thousand times during my youth: how the young soldier was left for dead but was saved by his sister and went on to father nine children and live to the ripe old year of 92. My twins, now five, are JR Simpson's 273rd and 274th descendants. Had JR died on the banks of Antietam Creek, had Annie not saved his life, 274 of us, and counting, would never have spent a day on earth. Now I have passed the stories on to you. The link is direct and personal and so charged with emotion. Though based on family records and the factual history, Annie's War is ultimately a work of fiction. My great grandfather's sister did not marry a southern captain and move to the Old Dominion after the war. But I wanted to portray what happened to the South after its defeat in the great conflict. By having Annie marry the Confederate captain and move to the Tidewater of Virginia, I was able to write about the anger, devastation, and heartache that permeated the South in a personal and purposeful manner. Annie's War, far more than anything else I have written, is the result of my family's long and varied chronicle in America. I wrote Annie's War partly because its basic elements are so clearly the stuff of great storytelling-fractured families, lost loves, the agonies of war and defeat-but also I wrote it because I believe the past gives us great insight into the present, and therefore the future. Much can be learned about ourselves by studying our parents, grandparents, and other forebears.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781737366102
ISBN 10	173736610X
Title	Undaunted
Author	Thomas William Simpson
Condition	Unavailable
Binding type	Paperback
Publisher	Vega Rising
Year published	2022-02-22
Number of pages	378
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable