Gregory A. Freeman Books In Order

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Gregory A. Freeman is a bestselling and award-winning author with over two decades of journalism and nonfiction writing experience. He is famously known for crafting nonfiction stories that read like a fast-paced novel. One of the famous works is The Gathering Wind, a tale of the sailing Bounty lost off the coast of North Carolina in 2012 during Hurricane Sandy. It is a compelling story about the brave Coast Guard rescuers, the ship crew, and the investigations that followed the incident.

Freeman’s work has been featured in Rolling Stone, Readers Digest, American History, World War II, and other publications. One notable feature of Gregory A. Freeman’s books is that they are meticulously researched and factual. They read like novels because he adds the personal stories of his characters into the narrative. For example, in the book about aircraft carriers, the author spent about two years interviewing the surviving members and reviewing the naval records, including getting hands on some classified documents. Because of his contacts in the Navy, he was allowed to visit an active-duty aircraft carrier and undertake his research.

The author has won over a dozen notable awards, including two Sigma Delta Chi Awards for Excellence in five years.

The Forgotten 500 is a gem nonfiction book that reads like a fast-paced true fiction novel. It’s an exciting adventure with endless twists and turns. In 1944, the majority of the world was engaged in war in Europe, attempting to drive the Axis forces back into whatever circle of torment they had crept from. Even though things were looking good for the Allies then, the fight was still far from over, and neither party could genuinely be envious of the other.

During that year, many notable but neglected misdeeds were committed, which we will unfortunately never learn about.

However, one of the most extraordinary acts of valor has been gradually lost and eroded by time: the search and rescue mission behind the enemy’s lines in Yugoslavia to return more than 500 downed pilots and airmen to their homeland. Recently, the rescue files were declassified, and Freeman seized the opportunity to provide an authentic and precise recounting of the events in his book The Forgotten 500.

Freeman makes a commendable effort to turn this into a novelized story, despite its being replete with dry data and factual descriptions. I believe, however, that the actual event is already sufficiently captivating to qualify as a literary work.
We learn practically everything there is to know about Operation Halyard, such as how the air force soldiers became stranded, how their rescue was planned, the obstacles they faced ranging from lack of supplies to mental struggles, and, of course, how it all transpired. In this remarkable account of everything that transpired, no detail is spared, and the reader is even pulled into the thoughts of the story’s protagonists.

Gregory Freeman has conducted extensive investigations and interviews with surviving Operation Halyard survivors. The Forgotten 500 is nonfiction that feels like fiction because it is so hypnotic.

The chapters shift between the expanding group of airmen and a handful of Wild Bill Donovan’s OSS (predecessor of the CIA). An American of Eastern European ancestry was a student at college in Belgrade for a few years until he fell in love with an attractive Yugoslav woman, and conflict broke out in Europe. Despite this, they wed but spent traumatic years attempting to flee a Nazi-controlled region. This chapter will keep you on the edge of your seat as the young couple divided up to travel separately and later met, repeatedly evading thrilling Nazi encounters. Truth is indeed stranger than fiction.

Overall, The Forgotten 500 is not just an entertaining and educational novel but also a culturally significant one. Humans perpetually differentiate themselves from animals, for example, by respecting our deceased, especially those brave individuals who gave their lives so that others might live.
The Gathering Wind is the story of a replica of the famous HMS Bounty, an 18th-century sailing ship. A model of the storied HMS Bounty, a tall sailing ship from the eighteenth century, was on a collision trajectory with a storm in October 2012, which would expand to be the most powerful hurricane ever measured in the Atlantic. This collision turned out to be dramatic, tragic, puzzling, and inevitably one of the most memorable accounts of Superstorm Sandy.

A diverse group of mariners manned the Bounty, and Robin Walbridge, its well-regarded captain with years at the helm, made the decisions that ultimately determined the destiny of his vessel and crew. Walbridge set out from Connecticut to outrun Sandy as the hurricane sped north from the Caribbean. He headed the Bounty southeast. The team battled to rescue the cherished Bounty and, in the end, saved themselves as solid winds rocked the wooden ship. The crew was abruptly thrown into the roiling sea as waves, currents, and approaching water eventually overwhelmed the vessel at a region famous as the Graveyard of the Atlantic. Even when the Bounty was no longer there, their destiny remained uncertain.

While the people of the Eastern Seaboard fled or braced for the hurricane’s wrath, the crew of a Coast Guard station in North Carolina had the fortitude to fly into gusts of 100 miles per hour. After hours of nerve-wracking flying, the Coast Guard completed one of its most remarkable rescues, with crew members flung around their aircraft and rescuers plunging into thirty-foot seas. The Gathering Wind is the first and most comprehensive account of this tragic, exciting, and motivational tale, thanks to interviews with Bounty survivors and unrestricted communications with Coast Guard rescue team members.

The ship in question wasn’t a pleasure boat or sizeable commercial vessel, but rather a tall wooden sailing ship, a replica of that famous ship the HMS BOUNTY, constructed for the 1960 film “Mutiny on the Bounty,” featuring Marlon Brando as well as more recently seen as Capt. Jack Sparrow. And the storm, in this case, wasn’t just any hurricane; it was Superstorm Sandy, the second-most destructive hurricane which flung the East Coast in late October 2012 and left at least 285 people dead across seven different nations.