AT A THEATRE NEAR YOU?<br /> This place has stories to tell. We know that. Many have been told. Through books, stage plays, movies and songs, the unique history of the province is being shared with a larger audience. <br /> One story that has been told before, in those books, plays, and even a short film, needs to be developed into a major motion picture, and that is, the incredible tale of the tragedy, and rescue, following the sinking of the American destroyers that smashed onto the rocks in Lawn Point and Chambers Cove on February 18th 1942.<br /> This province has become a great place from which to tell other stories in film. There is enough drama, enough action, enough racism, and enough truth to justify telling this story through a major film project. Because of the layers, one can envision a film larger than Titanic, more compelling than Saving Private Ryan and as provokingly thoughtful as the movie &Selma. In one film,<br /> The Rooms in St. John's recently focused attention in this story on its 76th anniversary. Author Cassie Brown's book, Standing Into Danger, tells the story well enough too. But much of the story is not as well known. The Miner's Museum in St. Lawrence has the layered story that includes:<br /> The tragedy of the wreck. Three American ships were on their way to the Argentia Naval Base when they went off course and smashed on the rocks. The Truxtun and Pollux were a total loss. Two hundred and three officers and crew (203) lost their lives. Residents of St. Lawrence and Lawn rescued 186 survivors. The story of how they did that is as magnificent as it is unknown to many.<br /> The story of segregation. At the time, the US Navy was segregated. Among the survivors, only one was black: Lanier Phillips. Phillips witnessed the terror of the Ku Klux Klan in the segreted South and was taught to fear white people. To escape the South, Philips joined the Navy in 1941. Back then, blacks were confined to duty as mess attendants. For him, that was never going to change.<br /> Phillips was the only black person these Newfoundlanders had ever seen. However, because he was treated no differently than any of the other men, Phillips returned home no longer willing to accept that his future was limited by his race. He became the first black Sonar technician in the U.S. Navy after insisting on being trained as such. Phillips eventually became actively involved in the Civil Rights movement. His life changed dramatically because of his exposure and treatment by Newfoundlanders, leading to his positive influence in that movement.That story is not as well-known but it should be told how his rescue altered his life's course.<br /> The miners. As the Miners Museum demonstrates, the men leaving the fluorspar mine that morning and discovering a Navy sailor coming towards them never hesitated to save who they could, in spite of the fact that because of their mining, they were slowly but surely dying of the thing that sustained them. The communities in the area never had many old men because the men in these communities died early.<br /> Young widows found themselves having to send their younger children off to orphanages so that the children could be looked after. There were no significant benefits to the families of dead miners. Older children had to find jobs to support the family while their younger siblings were sent away. <br /> Confession time: I was stationed with the U.S. Navy in Argentia. I came to Argentia as a former Sonar technician aboard a destroyer stationed off of Florida. The story of Lanier Phillips becoming the first black Sonar technician was not a story I heard in Fleet Sonar School in Key West in 1971, 30 years after Phillips joined the Navy, but it should have been.<br /> I went to the Miners Museum in the fall of 2016. I had read Cassie Brown's story years ago, but it was the visit to the museum that revealed the layers. Subsequently, my wife and I took my immediate supervisor from my Navy days on board ship, and his wife, to visit the museum in 2017. We were awestruck by the story and the fact that it has never been made into a major film.<br /> I've done what I can do to bring attention to this project. I'm not very creative as to how to go about this, as I've been completely unable to transfer the image I have of this being a major film project, and who should be in which roles, to anyone who is capable of getting the ball rolling. Tom Hanks has never gotten back to me. Or Denzel. Or Oprah.<br /> I need help.<br /> <br /> Alex Harrold <br /> Westport, NL<br />   Submitted By: Alex Harrold