Language lessons Barricade meeting incites passion

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COMMUNITY 14 • December 8, 2010 SAMMAMISH REVIEW City lights Ornaments and lights hang from the city’s Christmas tree as community members mingle in the City Council chamber. Families ooh and ahh and take pictures as the tree and menorah lights shine. Luke Chafin, 5, center, decorates a cookie as children reach for the frosting cup Dec. 1 at the Sammamish holiday lighting ceremony. Hundreds gathered in Sammamish City Hall Dec. 1 to usher in the holiday season. Families with children buzzed around the crowded City Council chambers and reception area as the Blackwell Elementary choir sang Christmas and Hanukkah songs. And with a short countdown, those in attendance oohed and ahhed as the city’s 15-foot tall Christmas tree and menorah came alive with light. Children pined for the frosting as they decorated cookies. Photos by Christopher Huber Blackwell fourth-grade choir members Morgan Olynyk, bottom left, Kiera Finnegan, Jared Son, center left, and Duncan Woodward sing for the crowd Dec. 1 at the city’s holiday lighting event.
SAMMAMISH REVIEW December 8, 2010 • 15 A torpedo couldn’t stop Ilene Birkwood’s journey By Christopher Huber Seven-year-old Ilene Birkwood and her sister scrambled to the shelter as the warning sirens wailed, the anti-aircraft guns boomed and the hum of German bombers’ engines filled the skies above Britain. In 1940, Birkwood and her siblings boarded a ship that would evacuate them from the Isle of Wight, Great Britian to Canada. The ship, The Volendam was torpedoed twice by German forces, but Birkwood and the 300 children on board were saved. Soon after departure, two German torpedoes struck the Volendam, but only one exploded, leaving a gaping hole in the bow. “It was pretty traumatic for some of the kids,” said Birkwood, now a Sammamish resident. “If that (second one) had gone off I would not be talking to you now.” Birkwood relived in clear detail her World War II experience with the Children Overseas Reception Board program in her new book, “The Second Torpedo.” “To discover late in life that you should have gone to a watery grave before your eighth birthday is a strange experience,” Birkwood wrote. Born in England, Birkwood moved with her husband to Pine Lake in 2006. She moved to the United States in 1970 and has served on the NASA Software Engineering Board and as vice president of Tandem Computers. She has written two mystery novels — “Suddenly Silence” and “Deadly Deception” — as well as the non- fiction book “Stress for Success.” “She has a special gift where the way she writes is the way she speaks,” Randall Birkwood said. “When I’m reading her writing, it’s as if she’s talking to me.” This latest story sucks the reader in with the innocent views of a child living in wartime. “It grabbed me because it was real, it was somebody’s personal story,” said Randall Birkwood, Ilene’s son. “I had heard some of it growing up, but definitely from reading the book I just learned more about how they lived and the worry my grandmother had about letting them leave. Being a parent myself, I could totally identify with that.” Ilene Birkwood didn’t just write down her memories of Germany’s attack on Britain. She conspired with her siblings who together recalled details of their family life as intimate as the brand of their father’s pipe tobacco and the joys of collecting shrimp on the beach before dinner. She researched the child-evacuation program extensively and interviewed peers who were on the ship with her. “The Second Torpedo” is a true story — Birkwood’s recount of life as a child during the looming German attack on Britain and subsequent evacuation. At age seven, she is whisked away on a Canada-bound ship with 300 other children, headed for voluntary host families to wait out the war. As the alarm bells ring, the children calmly board the lifeboats and are saved. Two weeks later, the Germans sink Writers’ Cottage Holiday Party & Book Signing at Gilman Village Saturday, Dec. 11th 3:00 - 6:00 pm For more information 317 NW Gilman Blvd Ste. 8 www.pnwa.org Open to Public Contributed The Voldendam was damaged by a German torpedo during World War II. the ship Birkwood and her siblings were supposed to be on, but a member of their group had gotten sick with chicken pox, being delayed for another voyage. “What hit me the hardest was Remodeling Issaquah for 33 years. Additions, kitchens, baths. Remodeling of all kinds. Expert storm damage repairs 425-392-4751 Lic. No. CRAIGSC961JZ how close she came to dying. All those children came so close to dying,” Randall Birkwood said. “By a miracle, one of them didn’t detonate.” It really hit home knowing that.” The story intertwines Ilene Birkwood’s childhood experience with Britain’s struggle to fight Hitler’s military attacks. “I think Ilene captures the whole atmosphere extremely well,” said friend and fellow writing critic Meg Hellyer. “She makes all the individual characters in the book come alive.” The book never would have come to be if fellow Volendam passenger John Roberts had not called her while on her vacation in Britain, she said. Birkwood garnered information from a maritime museum curator who had interviewed the captain of the German U-boat that attacked the Volendam, she said. “It took a long time for me to actually get started,” she said. Ultimately the book took about six months to write. “I enjoyed doing it tremendously.” The book provides a child’s adventurous view of sailing for Canada and the strange sense of calm the children had while evacuating to the lifeboats. Britain-born Hellyer noted how disciplined and well-behaved young Britons were in the 1940s. “For people who have no particular relationship to this story, I think the most compelling (aspect) would be the whole attitude and spirit of young people at that time,” Hellyer said. “It’s powerful enough to appeal to even the younger generation.” Reporter Christopher Huber can be reached at 392-6434. ext. 242, or chuber@isspress.com. Comment on this story at www.SammamishReview.com.
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Language lessons Barricade meeting incites passion

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