Captain George Pollard, Jr., who inspired an all-time great 1851 novel, was the captain of Essex that was attacked and sunk by what?
George Pollard Jr. George Pollard Jr. George Pollard Jr. (1791–1870) was the captain of the whalers "Essex" and "Two Brothers", both of which sank. Pollard's life, including his encounter with the sperm whale that sank "Essex", served as inspiration for Captain Ahab, the whale-obsessed character in Herman Melville's "Moby-Dick". George Pollard was born in Nantucket, Massachusetts, the son of Tamar (Bunker) and George Pollard, a ship's captain, at a time when the principal industry there was hunting sperm whales to harvest the oil contained in their blubber and spermaceti. By the time he was 23 he had served on the "Essex" for four
The Captain (novel) The Captain (novel) The Captain is a 1967 novel by Dutch writer Jan de Hartog. It is a sequel of a sort to his 1940 book "Captain Jan", though not having the same characters as the earlier book. The frame story has Martinus Harinxma, a senior tugboat captain home after a long voyage, catching up on correspondence. He opens a letter from a young man who is the son of a Canadian naval officer killed aboard Harinxma's ship during escort duty during Second World War. In the letter, the son asks the Captain, "How was my father killed, and what