Under the Red Sea Sun (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1946) is a book by Edward Ellsberg describing salvage operations of the many ships scuttled by the Italians to block the port of Massawa on the Red Sea coast of Eritrea during World War II. Massawa's excellent harbor was vital first to the Italian then to the British war effort.
Ellsberg, a skilled writer, described how a small group of workers under his direction accomplished an almost Herculean task with virtually no resources. Much of the story is an entertaining account of the bureaucratic politics of working in a remote backwater far from support and assistance.
Ellsberg paints a realistic picture of confusion and incompetence in the early days of the war. He was particularly caustic about the American civilian contractor building facilities at Ghinda and Asmara, where it was much cooler than at Massawa but was too far away for the facilities to ever be used by harbor personnel.
Read more about Under The Red Sea Sun: Quotation, Reviews, The Book As Inspiration
Famous quotes containing the words red, sea and/or sun:
“Red lips are not so red As the stained stones kissed by the English dead.”
—Wilfred Owen (1893–1918)
“should some limb of the devil
Destroy the view by cutting down an ash
That shades the road, or setting up a cottage
Planned in a government office, shorten his life,
Manacle his soul upon the Red Sea bottom.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“As the farmer casts into the ground the finest ears of his grain, the time will come when we too shall hold nothing back, but shall eagerly convert more than we now possess into means and powers, when we shall be willing to sow the sun and the moon for seeds.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)