title: Standing into danger: A dramatic story of shipwreck and rescue
author:  Cassie Brown 
description: In the snowy predawn of February 18, 1942, a convoy of three American ships zigzagged up the North Atlantic toward Newfoundland, heading for one of the worst disasters in naval history. The ships were under radio silence to protect their position from the threat of German U-boats. A storm was raging, visibility was zero, and the currents had turned wildly unpredictable. With only unreliable soundings to guide them across the jagged ocean floor, all three vessels ran aground on the sheer rock coast of Newfoundland. Attempts to carry lifelines ashore were thwarted by heavy surf, cold, oil slicks, and floating wreckage. A few sailors, however, overcame the odds and managed to reach the coast where the communities of lawn and St. Lawrence effected a super-human rescue operation. Two hundred and three American sailors died as the Wilkes, the Pollux, and the Truxtun were battered against the icy shore by the treacherous North Atlantic. And those who survived would return home to receive not a hero's welcome but the harsh interrogation of their naval superiors.
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  ![The_Winter_Sea_CVR_final.jpg](../Images/The_Winter_Sea_CVR_fina_fmt.png)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  About The Winter Sea
  
  
  
  
  
  Escaping an unhappy marriage and an unsatisfactory job, Cassie Holloway moves
  to the little NSW coastal town of Whitby Point. Here she meets the Aquino
  family, whose fishing business was founded by their ancestor, Giuseppe, an
  immigrant Italian, some ninety years before.
  
  
  
  
  
  Life for Cassie on the south coast is sweet as she sets up a successful
  restaurant and falls in love with Giuseppe’s great-grandson Michael. But when
  the family patriarch dies, a devastating family secret is revealed which
  threatens to destroy her dreams. Cassie’s future happiness now rests on her
  quest for the truth.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![101039.png](../Images/101039.png)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![101339.png](../Images/101339.png)
  
  
  
  
  
  [Cover](../Text/The_Winter_Sea.xhtml#cover)
  
  
  
  
  
  [About _The Winter Sea_](../Text/The_Winter_Sea-1.xht