Search results for ""Author Theodore Catton""

While a number of published collections of World War II letters are available to readers, few rise to the level of war literature. A Young Sailor at War: The World War II Letters of William R. Catton Jr. is remarkable for the narrative skill of its letter writer, for his exuberance and candor, and for his youthful but thoughtful commentary. Edited by his son Theodore, Catton's letters give us a truly intimate look into an essential piece of history.William R. Catton Jr. volunteered for navy service on his 17th birthday in January 1943 and served as a plane handler onboard the aircraft carrier USS Ticonderoga from August 1944 through the end of WWII. He learned how to rebuild an aircraft engine and fire a 50-caliber machine gun before he was 18 and made two voyages across the Pacific and saw a year of combat before he was 20. He was wounded in a devastating kamikaze attack in January 1945, and he was on deck to watch the sunrise on Mount Fuji when Ticonderoga entered Tokyo Bay after the Japanese surrender seven months later.Bill was a prolific correspondent who displayed a wide-eyed sense of adventure and a self-conscious pride in being a witness to history. He reported events and personal interactions in clear, often colorful prose. Upon returning home, his sea stories mostly went untold, his Purple Heart medal and stripes went into a box of mementos never to be shown, while his letters from the war—carefully saved by his mother—went unread until his son began to examine them after his father's death. Bill Catton, who went on to become a sociologist well known for his work on the environment and human ecology, has indeed left us a unique commentary.

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In September 1823, three men met at Rainy Lake House, a Hudson's Bay Company trading post near the Boundary Waters. Dr. John McLoughlin, the proprietor of Rainy Lake House, was in charge of the borderlands west of Lake Superior, where he was tasked with opposing the petty traders who operated out of US territory. Major Stephen H. Long, an officer in the US Army Topographical Engineers, was on an expedition to explore the wooded borderlands west of Lake Superior and the northern prairies from the upper Mississippi to the forty-ninth parallel. John Tanner, a "white Indian" living among the Ojibwa nation, arrived in search of his missing daughters, who, Tanner believed, were at risk of being raped by the white traders holding them captive at a nearby fort. Rainy Lake House weaves together the captivating stories of these men who cast their fortunes in different ways with the western fur trade. Drawing on their combined experiences, Theodore Catton creates a vivid depiction of the beautiful and dangerous northern frontier from a collision of vantage points: American, British, and Indian; imperial, capital, and labor; explorer, trader, and hunter. At the center of this history is the deeply personal story of John Tanner's search for kinship: first among his adopted Ojibwa nation; then in the search for his white family of origin; and finally in his quest for custody of his half-Indian children. Rainy Lake House is a character-driven narrative about ambition, adventure, alienation, and revenge. Catton deftly crafts one grand narrative out of three and reveals the perilous lives of the white adventurers and their Indian families, who lived on the fringe of empire.

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