Edwin Land had barely settled into his seat on the plane when the flash went off. An idea for an innovative WWII technology that might help eradicate the fascist cancer devouring the free world. It was Polaroid’s Optical Ring Sight, which magically projected a bullseye of brilliantly colored rings onto the sky—like rings of fire—to aim American antiaircraft guns that previously “couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn.”
Rings of Fire is the compelling story of American ingenuity, determination, and grit—told through the personal stories of the amazing people who transformed insight into gunsight. From scientists to ordinary Americans to drifters and ex-cons characterized as “the underbelly of America,” they crossed cultural barriers to tackle a shared crisis:
California “desert rat” artist, John Hilton, whose mining claim supplied the calcite crystals desperately needed for the device, assisted by Gen. George S. Patton.
Miners Steve Modesto and John Owens, a Cahuilla Indian ranch hand and a white meat-cutter from Kansas, whose friendship led to an astonishing discovery.
Moonshiner Al Hansen, whose calcite prospecting in Montana started with a lucky strike but cascaded into a wild-west vigilante showdown.
“Crystal Crackin’ Mama” Irene Frederick, whose calcite-crystal processing skills silenced male skeptics and helped rescue the Polaroid project from disaster.
Edwin Stanton, whose hubris led to a fat FBI dossier and tragedy while prospecting in Mexico.
Cecil Kegans, a rough Oklahoman with a huge smile, starting his Marine career by fetching groceries for calcite miners and ending it in a bloody pool on Saipan.
And miner Harry Sikkenga, whose fist fight with a shift boss packed him off to the army artillery, just in time to invade Germany and encounter the horror of Dachau.
Teamed together, they overcame enormous personal obstacles to produce ring sights for Navy ships, aircraft, and Army bazookas. And afterwards, their product went from aiming the guns of war to the cameras of peacetime—for television and on the helmets of skydiving videographers. And then, all the way to the moon, aiming NASA’s space cameras, culminating with perhaps the most influential photograph of all time, Earthrise.
Larry Hughes unfolds this gripping, never-told story with accessible explanations of the science and the art behind the project, but always lets the colorful characters drive a warm and vivid adventure.
Larry Hughes is a scientist, artist, and writer based in Memphis, Tennessee. His 45-year geophysics career has focused on mining and environmental investigations, resulting in numerous publications and top awards for scientific innovation. An award-winning watercolor artist, he has been selected as Artist in Residence at multiple national parks, where he advocates for resource preservation through plein-air trail engagement and painting classes for children. In his spare time, he cooks up a mean plate of chile rellenos.
“Hughes’s warm knitting together of a “patchwork of personalities” makes for satisfying reading. It’s an upbeat tale of American innovation and can-do-ism.” — Publishers Weekly
In Rings of Fire, Larry Hughes takes us on a picaresque journey, recounting the urgent effort to turn calcite crystals into the antiaircraft gunsights that helped win World War II. Along the way, he introduces a motley but quintessentially American cast of characters: a genius inventor and his cadre of Ivy League scientists in Boston; an eccentric artist and a Cahuilla shaman in the California deserts; a card-shark cowboy and “Crystal Crackin’ Mamas” in Montana; ex-cons and immigrants, drifters and hot-headed miners, even an optometrist who fancied himself a secret agent in Mexico.
It’s an epic story, filled with an unfolding array of evocatively described landscapes and sharply drawn, unforgettable people. — Dayton Duncan, writer and producer for Ken Burns documentary films and author of fourteen books on American history and national parks
