Eloise Paananen

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/countdown-for-cindy-by-eloise-engle/

It’s a curiosity. I have identified the author as Eloise Katherine Engle nee Hopper (1923-1993), who was born in Seattle and died in Alexandria, across the river from DC; in the introduction she identifies her husband as Captain Paul R. Engle (MC) USN. The intro concludes:

"I could not have dreamed of writing a space book for girls without the help of Major James F. Sunderman and the Air Force Book program."

She also wrote show more several books on military history, and a couple of other novels, some of them with her second husband Lauri Paananen, who was Finnish.

Anyway, the story itself was originally published in American Girl, the magazine of the Girl Scouts of the USA, in 1961, and expanded for book publication in 1962. It has a brief but gushing preface from Dolores O’Hara, the Lieutenant Nurse for the Mercury astronauts. It’s set at an unspecified date in the near-ish future, where no women have yet flown into space (though in our own timeline, that particular barrier was broken as early as 1963) and yet there are several dozen male astronauts living on a base on the Moon.

Our protagonist, gallant Cindy McGee, is a nurse for the astronaut corps, and is sent to the Moon to deal with several astronauts injured in an accident because she weighs only 95 pounds, much to the annoyance of her female colleagues who are better pilots. She shows that she is good at nursing in space despite occasional moments of feminine panic. They celebrate Christmas on the Moon, and some of the chaps are mean to her. In the second last chapter there is a bizarre incident where aliens appear on the lunar base, look around and then erase everyone’s memories of their visit before going home. And she realises that she is in love with the astronaut who flew her to the moon and back, manly Turk Hunter [sic].

There are numerous fallacies of detail (mercilessly catalogued by Ian Sales here), but for me the striking thing about the book is its lack of ambition for Cindy and for women. Nursing is the only profession that can get you into space; being a good pilot is not enough. The hierarchy is thoroughly male and likely to stay that way. For a book published in the 1960s, the attitudes are very 1950s. (Cindy’s weight is specified as early as half way down the first page.)

I couldn’t honestly recommend it. show less

Invading Finland in wintertime was one of Stalin's biggest blunders that cost the Russian soldiers dearly. Instead of securing the Soviet Union's northern flank with a neutral country, Stalin's demands for more defensive space around Leningrad and the resulting war weakened the Soviets.

The Soviets not only attacked during the wrong season, they attacked the wrong place. The limited Soviet war aims of conquering but part of Finland played a part in their defeat. Instead of going directly show more against the capital cities where the population lived (as did the Germans in Operation Weserübung against Norway), the Soviets executed a broad advance across difficult terrain. As long as the ski-borne Finns were able to stop the Soviet attacks, Mother Nature and the logistical constraints eliminated the Soviet forces.

This book offers a good but too short introduction to an exotic conflict, albeit from a stark Finnish point of view. A more detailed analysis what led the Soviets into this abyss might offer lessons to avert further cases of Imperial hubris. show less

Dated, perhaps, but a fascinating time capsule. This book was written specifically to promote the idea of women in space. The story is of a young nurse sent to a space station on an emergency, who must learn to cope life in space. There is, of course, a romance, but it is well handled and not sappy. A book fondly remembered from my adolescence and found for me by Loganberry Books.

A very good book about the David & Goliath battle between Russia and Finland. The Soviets did the wrong thing at the wrong time and paid heavily for their mistakes.