For anyone on the hunt for inspiration or a serious study in serendipity, a double-feature documentary being presented aboard the USS Midway Museum on Monday night may fit their bill.
The two stories unfold a generation apart but share remarkable similarities – two heroic U.S. service members killed before their time, their Annapolis class rings discovered years later and somehow returned to their loved ones.
One of the films, “The Last Ring Home,” became a media darling after capturing three awards during a tour of independent film festivals across the country in 2016.
The other is a newly completed project with direct ties to San Diego County.
“The Ring and the Mountain” recounts the 1972 death of Henry Pilger on a craggy mountaintop 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle, the unlikely discovery of his ring its reunion with Abigail Pilger Boretto, the Poway mother of three who was just 15 months old when her father died.
Abigail Pilger Boretto plans to attend the Monday screening of “The Ring and the Mountain,” which recounts the 1972 death of Henry Pilger and her reunion with his Annapolis ring.
(Courtesy of Nicole Barton Photography
)
“I’ve only been on this journey two years, from not knowing my father to having this very spiritual relationship with him,” said Boretto, who will be at the American premiere of “The Ring and the Mountain” on Monday.
Boretto and other family members of the men who died during a NATO training helicopter flight in Norway more than 50 years ago will be on hand Monday about the retired aircraft carrier.
Josh Shelov, the filmmaker behind “The Last Ring Home,” also will be in attendance. His film tells the story of Nathaniel Minter Dial, a U.S. Navy lieutenant who was killed while being held as a P.O.W. by the Japanese during World War II.
Exhibited at the San Diego G.I. Film Festival in 2017, “The Last Ring Home” explores Dial’s experience as a career Navy officer who was killed in 1944 – and its effect on his family.
He passed along a final letter and his ring to a buddy to deliver to his bride before he died.
The ring was lost but the letter was delivered to Dial’s wife. In 1958, the ring was found in Korea, astonishingly by the driver of an American rear admiral who had been one of Dial’s classmates at Annapolis many years earlier.
Like the earlier story, “The Ring and the Mountain” tells the story of another long lost Annapolis class ring that was discovered by a Norwegian doctor named Hans Krogstad in 1993.
Krogstad found the gold ring with a blue star sapphire wedged in a crevice on Grytoya Island more than 20 years after the helicopter crash. It was engraved “Henry N. Pilger” and featured the U.S. Naval Academy insignia.
Through a series of contacts and happy coincidences, the ring was eventually returned to Pilger’s widow, who by then had remarried. She gave the ring to her daughter, who preserved it in a memory box for years.
The letter from Hans Krogstad, who found Henry N. Pilger’s ring
(Courtesy of Abigail Boretto)
Abigail Pilger rediscovered the family keepsake a few years ago, and became focused on finding Krogstad and thanking him personally.
She also contacted Dial’s grandson to share the similarity between her story and his, and within weeks they reached out to Shelov and began production of “The Ring and the Mountain.” Pilger also was able to meet Krogstad, a man she said changed her life.
Tickets to the double-feature event cost $125 and include a reception with appetizers and dessert.
