My father passed away when I was five. In World War 2 his being a metallurgist made his profession quite essential and he fought that war in Chicago producing alloys to get the job done better. As the war ended, he and several other representatives of the various smelting industries were put on the The Overseas Scrap Advisory Board and sent to Europe to evaluate what to do with ALL the scrap metal---bring it home, destroy it, bury it at sea, salvage it from the sea---and a few other options as well. He arrived back in the USA with a film of it all---and then he sat down and wrote his report on the brass and bronze aspects of what he found on the other side. That book is entitled A Metalurgist Views Europe by Carl Otto Thieme.

Now, the reason for this thread!! Someone borrowed my only copy of that book. I have no idea who it might've been, but I would very much like to have it back. It was/is the only remaining insight I've ever had into the heart of that man---my father.

It wasn't a great book---and it was never sold in stores; just was given to industry peers of his. It was a travelogue through a shattered Europe at a time when mines were being exploded on the beaches almost every fifteen mintes. It was written by a man who drank too much scotch, smoked too much, and ate only cholesterol---as did many others then. For me, it raised more questions than it answered----questions my brother and I will never be able to answer because we are the only ones left standing here in 2004. (Well, my brother is standing. I'm sitting and rolling more often than not ;-)In the 1960s I was very critical of what I found there in that book -- between the lines---I thought. Now, pushing 63 with more wisdom I do hope, I would like to look at the world through his eyes once more.-----He came home from that trip to Europe, my mother typed his manuscript for him--and a while later he passed away in December of 1947.

Again, the book is called:

A METALLURGIST VIEWS EUROPE--From The Beaches To Berlin
by Carl Otto Thieme

Thanks for indulging this thread creep.

(Art Thieme)