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The Ship Disguised as an Island

3/18/2020

Jan Adkins
The Explainer General

The United States entered World War II after December 7, 1941, when Japanese carrier-based aircraft destroyed our warships and airfields at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. At the same time, they attacked United States, British, Dutch and Australian targets all over the western Pacific Ocean with overwhelming force.

The British battleship Prince of Wales and the heavy cruiser Repulse were destroyed three days later. A ragtag fleet of smaller Allied warships was crushed at the Battle of the Java Sea on February 27, 1942. Scattered and discouraged, remaining Allied ships retreated south to Australia.

The Dutch minesweeper Abraham Crijnssen (CRANE son) was a little boat: 184 feet long, 25 feet wide (56m X 7.5m). She mounted a small cannon and a few machine guns, and she was slow—not a match for any Japanese warship or airplane. Her captain, Commander Anthonie van Miert, called “all hands” for a meeting. Rather than scuttle the boat and surrender, he meant to escape. The chances were slim. He wanted only a crew of volunteers and allowed most of the crew to leave.

Two other minesweepers set out to escape before him as his volunteers covered the Crijnssen with camouflage netting. He caught up with them next morning but they weren’t camouflaged, and van Miert steamed on to another anchorage. A wise choice: both minesweepers were spotted by Japanese aircraft. Neither survived.

Van Miert couldn’t be caught in the open! His crew repainted the hull to look like shore rocks. Before dawn each morning they pushed up against a jungle island to cut fresh tree branches and foliage. They tied the greenery to the masts and stuck it into the netting. They sat through the day disguised as an innocent island. When night came the little vessel steamed south. She rushed through dangerous, narrow straits then slowed down to save fuel. No lights, all her portholes covered, her lookouts sharp and worried. Toward morning, they found a new island and rigged a new disguise.
For eight days the lonely little ship steamed at night and became an island during the day. On March 15, 1942, she docked in Geraldton, Australia. The Crijnssen escaped and survived World War II.

Commander van Miert and nine crew members received the Dutch Navy’s Cross of Merit for courage, and for imagination. Today you can visit the tough little island . . . er, ship, at the naval museum in Dan Helder, Netherlands.

The Dutch minesweeper Abraham Crijnssen (CRANE son) was a little boat: 184 feet long, 25 feet wide (56m X 7.5m). This is what she looked like before she became an island.

This is how she looked when disguised as an island. Pretty cool

Adkins' latest book is about the first drive in an automobile. The wife of the inventor took her kids to see their grandparents. Learn more about it here.

The author/illustrator is a member of iNK's Authors on Call and is available for classroom programs through Field Trip Zoom, a terrific technology that requires only a computer, wifi, and a webcam. Click here to find out more.

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"Ride, Sally, Ride!"

3/12/2020

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Jim Whiting
The Running Encyclopedia

In 1983, shortly before she became America’s first female astronaut to participate in a mission, Sally Ride faced a press conference. Reporters raised questions they would never have asked a man. “Will the flight affect your reproductive organs?” one inquired. “Do you weep when things go wrong on the job?” queried another. A third wondered, “Will you wear makeup and a bra in space?” Tonight Show host Johnny Carson joked that the flight was delayed because Sally had to find a purse that matched her shoes.

It wasn’t just U.S. media. The Soviet Union had already sent two women into space. When one of them arrived at the space station, a male cosmonaut (the Soviet term for astronauts) said, “An apron is waiting for you in the kitchen.”

By this point, Sally had mastered parachute jumping, water survival, coping with weightlessness and the massive G-forces from a rocket launch, and other highly demanding skills. She flew jet planes. She had a Ph.D. degree in physics from Stanford, one of the nation’s top universities. She helped develop a robotic arm for use on the space shuttle. She was a nationally ranked tennis player who decided not to turn pro because she preferred science.

The general public seemed more accepting. On launch day at Florida’s Cape Canaveral, thousands of people wore “Ride, Sally, Ride!” T-shirts, from the lyrics of the pop song “Mustang Sally.”

The mission went flawlessly, and Sally flew again the following year. She was scheduled for a third flight in 1986, but it was scrubbed when the Challenger space shuttle blew up.

Sally left the space program soon afterward. She was passionate about encouraging young people—especially girls—to become involved in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math). Here are some of the things she did toward that achieving that goal.

She originated the Sally Ride EarthKam project, in which middle school students request that astronauts take photos of any point on Earth. Students research features in the images to provide additional material for subjects they are studying.
Her company Sally Ride Science offers programs encouraging STEM studies.
Sally Ride Science Camps for Girls provide week-long immersions in science.
Sally Ride Science Festivals bring hundreds of students together in day-long celebrations of science.
She wrote seven children’s books about the Earth and various aspects of space travel.

Sadly, Sally Ride died of cancer in 2012 at the age of 61. Shortly afterward, President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom. It is the nation’s highest civilian honor.

On June 18, 1983, Sally Ride became the first American woman in space as a crew member on space shuttle Challenger. Here she communicates with ground controllers from the flight deck during the six-day mission. U.S. National Archives

Sally Ride while promoting the Sally Ride Science Festival at UCSD in 2006. Wikimedia

To find information on many of Jim Whiting's books, click here.

MLA 8 Citation
Whiting, Jim. "'Ride, Sally, Ride!'" Nonfiction Minute, iNK Think Tank, 14 May
2018, www.nonfictionminute.org/the-nonfiction-minute/Ride-Sally-Ride.

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Saving the Tasmanian Devil

3/11/2020

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Dorothy gently holds a baby Tasmanian devil at Trowunna Wildlife Preserve on Tasmania

Dorothy Hinshaw Patent
Nature’s Animal Ambassador

Have you ever heard of the Tasmanian devil? It’s actually nothing like the cartoon version—the real devil is a black animal with white markings that’s smaller than a cocker spaniel, and it’s in trouble.

The Tasmanian devil once lived on the continent of Australia but now survives in the wild only on the island state of Tasmania, just off Australia’s south coast. It’s the largest surviving marsupial carnivore in the world. A marsupial’s young develop in a pouch on their mother’s belly rather than in a uterus inside their mother’s body. Other than females with young, the devils are solitary, living in a burrow in the ground during the day and coming out at dusk to feed. Devils can hunt for prey but much of their diet consists of dead animals—carrion--such as road-killed wallabies and wombats.

A disease spreading across the island since 1996 has decimated the devil population. Scientists and wildlife managers are working hard in an effort to study and protect this unique species. The killer, called Devil Facial Tumor Disease (DFTD), is unusual. It’s not caused by a virus or by bacteria. It’s a form of cancer that began with a single devil, and it can spread from one animal to another. Devils will bite each other as they fight over carrion, and the cancer cells on the face of one devil can infect another as they fight. Normally, an animal’s body can recognize cells that aren’t its own and destroy them. But DFTD cells protect themselves from being “discovered,” as if wearing an invisibility cloak. They invade their victims’ bodies and eventually kill them.

DFTD spread so fast and killed so many devils that the government and scientists feared that the Tasmanian devil would become extinct in the wild. They established disease-free colonies in captivity on the Australian mainland and on Tasmania and studied the cancer in laboratories. Now, the devil is making a comeback—there’s a vaccine that provides some protection to captive devils that have been released in the wild, and ecologists have found that some wild devils are able to fight the disease on their own. Meanwhile, another kind of facial tumor disease has appeared. It’s spreading more slowly, but biologists and the devils still have a lot to deal with. You can learn more from the Save the Tasmanian Devil Program .

Phis devil suffers from Devil Facial Tumor Disease (DFTD). photo credit: Menna Jones

Scientist Greg Woods studies a culture of DFTD cells through a microscope. photo credit: D. Patent

Graduate student Alex Fraik traps wild devils to check on the occurrence of DFTD in the wild. Here she’s releasing a devil after having taken measurements and taking notes on its health. photo credit: D. Patent

Tierney and Sassafrass act as “ambassadors” for the devil at the Healesville Sanctuary near Melbourne. photo credit: D. Patent

Traps like this are used to catch wild devils so they can be examined by researchers. A closed trap means there’s likely to be a devil inside that went for the bait. photo credit: D. Patent

Young devils at Trowunna Wildlife Preserve are raised together to help them become well socialized. photo credit: D. Patent

This is Dorothy's book, Saving the Tasmanian Devil, as part of the Scientists in the Field Series. Read Vicki Cobb's review of this wonderful book.

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The Boy Who Looked Like the Enemy

3/4/2020

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Andrea Warren
Giving Voice to Children in History

  Norman Mineta was ten when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. He was a carefree fourth grader in San Jose, California, who loved baseball, hot dogs, and Cub Scouts. But after the attack, school friends turned on him, calling him the enemy and yelling at him, “Dirty Jap! You bombed Pearl Harbor!”
          “I looked like the enemy, so they assumed I was,” said Norm, whose parents had immigrated from Japan. “I burned with shame.”
          The FBI arrested Japanese American leaders, imposed a curfew, and restricted travel. People’s businesses were padlocked and their homes searched. “When we learned about the internment camps, it was very frightening,” Norm said.
          He and his parents, his older brother, and two of his three older sisters were taken by train to a camp near Heart Mountain, Wyoming, Heart Mountain housed 10,000 internees who lived behind barbed wire in 500 barracks. Their rooms had a single light bulb. No privacy, no closet, no running water.
          The Mineta family endured these hardships with grace and dignity. Norm found solace in playing baseball and doing well in school. Late in 1944 the family was sent by the government to Chicago so Norm’s father could teach Japanese to American army officers. They lived in a regular house, but were not free to go home.
          That finally happened when the war ended in 1945. They had been gone three long years. Gradually they resumed their former lives. After high school and college, Norm served in the army. He married, fathered two sons, and joined the family insurance business.
          Then he was elected mayor of San Jose and later served twenty years in the House of Representatives. While in congress, he and other congressional members sponsored a bill requiring the government to give financial restitution to each living internee. More important, each would receive a letter of apology from the President of the United States.
          After long and arduous work, the bill passed, becoming the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. Japanese Americans had been exonerated. Only then could healing begin for one of the most egregious civil rights violations in American history.
          Norm went on the serve in the cabinets of two presidents. Today this distinguished statesman works actively to tell the story of the interment and to ensure the civil rights of all Americans.

Norm (in front) with his brother, sister, and parents in 1934 in front of their home in San Jose, California

Norm being sworn into congress. Courtesy of Norman Mineta

Norm at age 10 just before Pearl Harbor was bombed.

Norm as he is today at the age of 88.

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The Ship Disguised as an Island

"Ride, Sally, Ride!"

Saving the Tasmanian Devil

The Boy Who Looked Like the Enemy

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