Andrew Jampoler lives in the Lost Corner of Loudoun County, Virginia, with his wife, Suzy, a professional geographer, and a guide dog puppy they're raising for the Guide Dog Foundation for the Blind. They have married children in Pennsylvania and Iowa. He is an alumnus of Columbia College and the School of International and Public Affairs, both of Columbia University, in New York City, and of the U.S. State Department Foreign Service Institute's School of Language Study. During more than twenty years on active duty with the U.S. Navy Jampoler commanded a land-based maritime patrol aircraft squadron and a naval air station. Later he was a senior sales and marketing executive in the international aerospace industry.
Jampoler has been writing non-fiction full time for some fifteen years. Most recently, the Naval Institute Press published his "Embassy to the Eastern Courts," the true and fascinating story of America's secret first pivot toward Asia during the Jackson administration. It's Jampoler's seventh book from NIP
His first book, "Adak: The Rescue of Alfa Foxtrot 586," is the true story of a navy patrol aircraft ditching in the North Pacific Ocean in October 1978. A review in May 2003 in the Wall Street Journal described the book as "an adventure story to rival the best you've ever read." "Adak" later won Jampoler recognition as the Press's "author of the year." The crew's story based on this book has been the subject of television specials in Russia and Japan.
His next book, "Sailors in the Holy Land: the 1848 American Expedition to the Dead Sea and the Search for Sodom and Gomorrah," is the story of the U.S. Navy's small boat expedition down the River Jordan and across the Dead Sea in mid-19th century. Nathaniel Philbrick, author of the award-winning "Sea of Glory," described the book in 2005 as telling "the fascinating story of one of the most improbable operations ever mounted by the U.S. Navy... a meticulously researched account."
"The Last Lincoln Conspirator: John Surratt's Flight from the Gallows," his third book, tells the remarkable story of John Harrison Surratt. Finally captured in Egypt eighteen months after his mother's execution on the same charge, Surratt was last person to go on trial for his role in John Wilkes Booth's plot to assassinate President Lincoln, and the only one to escape conviction.
Two books came out in 2013. "Congo," the true and tragic story of the United States and the Congo in the late 19th century, as seen through the life of Lieutenant Emory Taunt, US Navy, was published in June. Taunt was the first resident American diplomat in Equatorial West Africa. He died on the river in disgrace in 1891. Jampoler's research for this book took him 1,400 miles down the Congo River, from Kisangani to Banana Point, in a small boat in 2011. "Black Rock and Blue Water," the story of the wreck of Royal Mail Ship Rhone in the Caribbean in 1867, came out as an e-book later that year.
Jampoler also writes for periodicals. An article of his in "Naval History" magazine was recognized by the publisher as its best piece of writing during 2006. Andy has given illustrated presentations about the subjects of his books and articles to audiences at the Library of Congress, the National Archives, at the Smithsonian and at museums and in embassies. He's lectured also aboard cruise ships at sea around the world.
He's now working on a book about the wreck in 1916 off Santo Domingo of the armored cruiser USS Memphis.
