Hell on Ice: The Saga of the Jeannette (unopened CD Rom Included)

In 1925 he led the salvage efforts to raise the sunken submarine USS S-51, for which he became the first sailor to earn the Distinguished Service Medal in peacetime and was promoted to Commander by a special act of Congress.

Shortly after the raising of S-51, Ellsberg entered civilian service but remained in the naval reserve. He returned to active duty briefly in December 1927 to assist with the salvage of the submarine USS S-4.

In the late 1920s Ellsberg began his long and prolific career as a writer of naval history and fiction. On the Bottom, a best-seller in 1929, was his account of the raising of the S-51. During this time Ellsberg wrote a novel about World War I submarines called Pigboats, which was later made into the movie Hell Below, and the important Hell on Ice, about the ill-fated U.S. Navy Jeannetee Expedition to the North Pole.

Ellsberg re-entered the active Navy on December 8, 1941, and his World War II accomplishments in Ethiopia, North Africa and the invasion of Normandy are considered his most valuable work. He chronicled his achievements in the books Under the Red Sea Sun; No Banners, No Bugles; and The Far Shore.

Edward Ellsberg retired from the Navy with the rank of Rear Admiral. He returned to private life as a consulting engineer and continued to write and lecture. He and his wife Lucy of sixty years divided their final years between Maine and St. Petersburg Beach, Florida. He died in 1983 at 91 and was buried in Willimanatic, Connecticut.