‘South Laguna’s Forgotten Giant’

Your recent article concerning the property in South Laguna formerly owned by Richard Halliburton (“South Laguna’s Forgotten Giant,” Sept. 3) brought back nostalgic memories.

The reporter mentioned that Halliburton had swum the Dardanelles and crossed the Alps on an elephant. These two observations, made in such matter-of-fact fashion, do not describe the reasons for those adventures.

Halliburton swam the Hellespont (Dardanelles) to repeat the legendary accomplishment of Leander according to the myth of Hero and Leander. Leander was a Greek youth who was in love with Hero, a priestess of Aphrodite, confined to a temple across the Hellespont. Leander would swim the five-mile distance nightly, guided by a lantern placed by Hero in a tower. Unfortunately, so the legend goes, the lantern blew out one night in a storm, and Leander lost his way and perished, bringing the love affair to a tragic end.

The purpose of crossing the Alps by elephant was to follow in the footsteps of the Carthaginian general Hannibal who defeated the Roman armies in the second Punic War, in the period 218 to 202 B.C. Hannibal’s feat of crossing the Alps to attack by land brought him victory; prior to that the wars had involved sea battles which cost both sides large numbers of warriors.

The reporter’s unadorned factual statements that Halliburton swam the Hellespont and rode an elephant across the Alps do not do justice to the reasons for those heroic achievements. If the reporter had been at Mudville that fateful day, he would probably have written that “the Mudville nine lost after Casey struck out to end the game.” But still, the article was very informative and interesting, and I am glad to have had a chance to read it. My sincere compliments to James Carlton, your staff writer for his outstanding article.

EDWARD M. BILLINGHURST

Yorba Linda