“Hudson man tells stories of Coast Guard heroes”

Hudson man tells stories of Coast Guard heroes

Posted: 02 Oct 2010 09:36 PM PDT

While attending a Coast Guard reunion in Florida in 1987, Mike Walling met several former guardsmen who would change the course of his life.

The men Walling met had participated in the three-year Battle of the Atlantic during World War II. Although the typical role of guardsman is to save lives and rescue ships in distress, these men were responsible for carrying vital materials across the North Atlantic to U.S. allies.

Despite no formal writing training, Walling, who lives in Hudson, decided to write a book about those men and that battle.

"I was absolutely amazed, humbled and blown away by the men who were torpedoed off of Iceland," said Walling, a former commissioned and petty officer in the Coast Guard. "We had an immediate bond."

After several years of interviews and research, Walling completed "Bloodstained Sea," which won the Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval literature in 2005 and jump-started a career in telling the stories of pilots, soldiers and fellow guardsmen.

Now, five years later, Walling will release his new book, "In the Event of a Water Landing," which tells the stories of two of the most successful open-water airplane ditchings in American commercial aviation history through the eyes of the pilots, passengers and flight crews.

Since 1938, Walling said there have been 25 open-water airplane ditchings. The two most famous and successful are the rescues of the Bermuda Sky Queen and the Sovereign of the Skies, which are the main focus of Walling's new book.

Through the eyes of Bermuda Sky Queen Pilot Chuck Martin and Coast Guardsman Mike Hall, whose ship the Coastguarder Bibb rescued all 68 passengers, Walling tells of the ditching of the plane in the North Atlantic in 40-foot high sea waves after it ran low on fuel.

"Nobody sprains an ankle," Walling said.

Using stories from the flight crew, Walling also told of the Sovereign of the Skies rescue, in which 43 passengers were rescued after the plane ditched because of engine troubles.

Although he touches on 23 of the 25 incidents, Walling only briefly included the recent USAirways landing in the Hudson River because, he said, that incident "has been bludgeoned to death."

Throughout his research, Walling said his favorite part of the process was bringing Martin and Hall together.

"They've never met before," Walling said. "Many of them haven't thought of these memories in a long time. That's what I like to do. It's an honor to become friends with these people who have done incredible stuff."

Walling, who has several projects in the works, said he is excited about his upcoming release and is happy to tell the stories of his fellow guardsmen.

"That's what draws me to write what I write," Walling said. "I think it's going to be a ball. You have some fun throughout the book. I just want to tell their stories."

For more information on "In the Event of a Water Landing" and Walling's other works, visit MikeWalling.com.

(Jeff Malachowski can be reached at 508-490-7466 or Jmalacho@cnc.com.)

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