the joys of research, old style and new

[ewein2412]

OMG I could not write this book without Wikipedia. srsly

One of the simplest plastic explosives was Nobel’s Explosive No. 808, also known as Nobel 808 (often just called Explosive 808 in the British Armed Forces during the Second World War), developed by the British company Nobel Chemicals Ltd well before World War II. It had the appearance of green plasticine with a distinctive smell of almonds. During World War II it was extensively used by the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) for sabotage missions.

I *do* remember what it was like to do research in a library because that is how I researched A Coalition of Lions. And one of my worries in moving to Scotland (ten years ago) was that I would be leaving the Bodleian and British Libraries behind. But, but... the tortuous process of making a list of things you need to find out: Weight limit on a Westland Lysander, type of plastic explosive used by SOE, when was the fountain pen invented and what did you call it back then, what is the literal translation of "funkspiel"... Those are some of the things I've googled in the past 2 days. Hours and hours of library work, those would have taken, and chances are there wouldn't have been any books about Lysanders there anyway and I'd have had to order them through interlibrary loan.

Which is not to say I don't still use the library, because I have been using the local library more than ever for more general things like the wonderful Hugh Verity (his name is a coincidence) book We Landed By Moonlight about RAF Special Duties ferrying British agents into and evaders and refugees out of Occupied France, and the World War II Day by Day book. Perth and Kinross Libraries also publish their *own* books, an excellent thing for a local library to do, such as The Easy Trip, a local boy's account of parachuting out of his shot-down Lancaster bomber and having to be hidden by the French Resistance for 2 months.

We Landed By Moonlight is an AWESOME book, by the way. An excerpt:

Having dragged the airplane out of the mud with a team of oxen and horses, the pilot...

decided to take the minimum load and confined his passenger list to an RAF evader, one Frenchman, his wife and their young son. The man was a resistance worker who, under the sentence of death, had been rescued from a police van by his wife and friends. His wife had attacked the Gestapo in the van, tommy-gun in hand, when eight months pregnant. He seemed to be a nervous wreck. His wife was now within hours of giving birth. She just sat there in the mud.

At 0205, after they had been on the ground two and a half hours longer than intended, a final attempt at taking off succeeded...

Mrs. Aubrac [the wife of the resistance worker] was nine months pregnant and gave birth to a baby girl in Queen Charlotte's Hospital in London [that day after landing]. This baby girl was named Mitraillette (sub-machine gun).

Mitraillette!!!

Comments

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Presumably, if she'd been a boy he would have been Tommy, which is a bit easier to carry.

[ewein2412]

you have made me laugh again!

[lauradi7.livejournal.com]

Just the other day we were actively not missing the Readers' Guide to Periodic Literature.

I don't remember the name of the book, but a character in some book I read when I was a teen was a lifeguard named Shatto, or so the girl narrator thought. When they became friends later, he said that his name was actually Château-Thierry, because his father had been killed in that battle before he was born.

[ewein2412]

Just the other day we were actively not missing the Readers' Guide to Periodic Literature.

and just imagine if Antti Aarne and Stith Thompson had had a wiki tool available when they made up their folktale classification system and the Motif Index. 50 years ahead of their time!

[zalena.livejournal.com]

Did you know that this is the same company the funds the Nobel prizes?

[ewein2412]

I wondered about that.

[tiboribi.livejournal.com]

Isn't that the whole point of the Nobel peace prize, that Nobel realized he had created something nasty and warlike and felt really bad about it?

[sovay]

such as The Easy Trip, a local boy's account of parachuting out of his shot-down Lancaster bomber and having to be hidden by the French Resistance for 2 months.

Powell and Pressburger's One of Our Aircraft Is Missing (1942) is now out on DVD, speaking of which.

This baby girl was named Mitraillette (sub-machine gun).

That rocks.

[ewein2412]

Powell and Pressburger's One of Our Aircraft Is Missing (1942) is now out on DVD, speaking of which.

DUDE! I am happy to say that not only is this ALREADY PART OF OUR COLLECTION, but we also own this curious item, "The Story of the Film", which originally cost 6d. Not sure where we got it, either.

The film has got Peter Ustinov in it as the Priest! (as I'm sure you know)

I love the way they taxi in the brand new Stirlings at the end.

[j-cheney.livejournal.com]

I've found that I'm doing more purchasing of used books for research these days. I still go to the library, but I'm finding that their inventory is usually either too general or too 'young' for my needs.

Wiki is my friend, too. ;o)

[ewein2412]

I do that too.

I confess that in the case of *both* books referenced above I had to eventually buy my own copy because I had renewed them too many times. And also, I desperately needed to scribble in them.

But I did *start* at the library!

[j-cheney.livejournal.com]

I've done that, too ;o)

I keep my library # taped to my monitor so I can renew on-line. ::blushes::

[ewein2412]

i know my library number by heart because I renew on line so often! but unfortunately they only let you renew online twice and then you can only renew the book once more after that. And I have had the Hugh Verity book out since October.

[j-cheney.livejournal.com]

October? EEP!

Our lets us go on fairly indefinitely (until someone esle requests the book) but I feel so guilty. That's why I end up buying.

Just got my book on sailing in the mail today. ;o)

[ewein2412]

happy reading!

[tiboribi.livejournal.com]

I...don't think I ever did library research, not even in college (St. John's had an "original source only" stance that was pretty extreme). But Verity has driven me to Wikipedia bunches of times (historical fiction always drives me to Wikipedia.)

[ewein2412]

that's right, keep checking up on the unreliable narrator, she's probably making it up!

It was you that caught "Aeschelus" instead of "Aesclepius" in the ms. of The Sunbird. And did you hear that the copy editor (who missed it) had been a classics major?

[tiboribi.livejournal.com]

I spent an informative afternoon looking up the different planes Maddie flies. And the green flash.

Aeschylus Aesclepius thing was before Wikipedia, too! I think you looked it up with Encarta to confirm that I was right. (Aeschylus was always my favorite.)

[ewein2412]

apparently green flashes are a lot more common than people think. So now I am CONSTANTLY on the lookout for it. I am going to go blind.

The one in the story is meant to be a mirage-type and I have it lasting a bit longer than yer typical ordinary green flash.

[tiboribi.livejournal.com]

Hm. Well, I grant both you and your unreliable narrator artistic license when it comes to the length of a green flash.

I want to see one, too. The pictures on Wikipedia are fascinating. How to see one without constantly staring at the sun, now, that is the question.

[ewein2412]

yeah, if you put on sunglasses you MISS IT BEING GREEN

[tiboribi.livejournal.com]

And I don't think they protect your eyes from staring directly at the sun either.

[sophia1147.livejournal.com]

omg what a FASCINATING name!!!! I nearly had a heart attack at the part where mrs. aubrac had her baby cuz i thought it was the same lady who was in the mud! Shows how much i pay attention.

i mean, who gives birth sitting in the mud?!?!?!?!

[ewein2412]

it WAS the same lady who was sitting in the mud--she gave birth the next day. fortunately they managed to haul her out of the mud and get her to a hospital.

You'd be surprised where you can give birth when you have to--I remember being very impressed during the flooding in [Madagascar?] in 2000--a woman gave birth sitting in a TREE. And then she and her baby were airlifted to safety by helicopter!