The Day The World Came To Town
Jim DeFede
(Reviewer - Rebecca Brown)
2002 ReganBooks
ISBN: 0060513608

9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland.

When all incoming jetliners bound for the United States were ordered to land in Canada on September 11, 2001, due to the closing the US airspace, the citizens of Gander were called upon to come to the aid of over 6,500 displaced, frightened & multi-cultured travelers.

Prior to accommodating the huge convoys of planes getting ready to hop The Pond during WWII, Gander had been nothing more than a fuel depot. It wasn't until after the War that “Newfies” -- the people of Newfoundland -- voted to join the rest of Canada. Then a town grew up around the three main streets which joined together to make the shape of a goose head. During the 50s & 60s it became known as “defection heaven” from Communism. As long distance jetliners were developed, Gander's usefulness for Pond-hopping planes evaporated, although the U. S. Military still used it in shuttling their troops hither & yon. It was here on December 12, 1985, that an Arrow Air charter flight crashed after takeoff, killing everyone on board, including 248 members of the U.S. Army's 101 Airborne Division, returning home after a peace-keeping mission in the Sinai Peninsula.

The response of the people of Gander on 09/11 was truly extra-ordinary. I remember watching all those blips on radar screens converging on one little speck on the east coast of Canada, & wondering how would they fare -- both the passengers & crews, & the people on the ground?

“More than 250 aircraft, carrying 43,895 people, were diverted to fifteen Canadian airports from Vancouver in the west to St. John's in the east. American-bound planes were forced to land in Halifax, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Winnipeg, and Calgary. In each of these cities an army of volunteers and social service agencies came together to help the stranded passengers...The focus of this book, however...is Gander, located in the central highlands of Newfoundland...For the better part of a week, nearly every man, woman and child in Gander and the surrounding smaller towns...placed their lives on hold for a group of strangers.” (pp6-7)

On the ground we meet the movers & shakers of Gander: the mayor out taking the mood of his town; Oz Fudge, one of two constables, as he starts his rounds in his patrol car on a normal school day. Except, of course, that the school bus drivers were on strike. & Harold O'Reilly who was 50 that day, working his regular shift at Gander's air-traffic control center.

Gander has a unique place in trans-Atlantic aviation. It monitors all flights, to & fro, assisting pilots to find the jet stream, & is the first landfall of choice for private corporate & celebrity jets.

In the air we meet the pilots as they begin to hear the dreadful & incomprehensible news of the attacks on the World Trade Center. We also meet an American couple bringing home from Kazakhstan an orphan child to raise; immigrants from Moldavia; a fashion designer on his way to his last big show; a one star general headed for a security meeting; a mayor from a town in Germany invited to New York to celebrate Mayor Guiliani; a security guard returning from an assignment; an orthodox Rabbi who learnt the secret of why there, why then; husbands & wives coming back from the “Old Country” & many more.

The Day The World Came To Town is a little book with a huge story to tell about that September day in 2001, when those 38 jets (with a small zoo of animals in their holds!) came home to roost on an island with its own time zone in a land of Good Samaritans, after the world as we knew it changed forever.

I was thrilled when I discovered Jim DeFede's book. It is one of those immense stories from our collective 9/11 experience of how our neighbors to the north took us in & cared for us. It is also the modern global inter-connectedness that glows from Jim DeFede's gathering of the strands of people's lives into a braid of fear, compassion & gratitude, that makes The Day The World Came To Town a must read!

Jim DeFede has been an award-winning journalist for 16 years, first with the Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Washington, & then with the Miami New Times. His work has appeared in Talk, The New Republic, & Newsday. He is currently a metro columnist for the Miami Herald.
(11/02/03)

Rebecca