Futility Closet

In 1943 an isolated sledge patrol came upon a secret German weather station in northeastern Greenland. The discovery set off a series of dramatic incidents that unfolded across 400 miles of desolate coast. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll follow this arctic struggle, an often overlooked drama of World War II. We'll also catch some speeders and puzzle over a disastrous remedy. Intro: In 1970 the Journal of Organic Chemistry published a paper in blank verse. In 1899 the Journal of Mental Science described a man who cycled in his sleep. Sources for our feature on the North-East Greenland Sledge Patrol: David Howarth, The Sledge Patrol, 1957. Mark Llewellyn Evans, Great World War II Battles in the Arctic, 1999. John McCannon, A History of the Arctic: Nature, Exploration and Exploitation, 2012. Bjørnar Olsen and Þóra Pétursdóttir, Ruin Memories: Materialities, Aesthetics and the Archaeology of the Recent Past, 2014. Spencer Apollonio, Lands That Hold One Spellbound: A Story of East Gree