Can a Historical Novelist Do Too Much Research?

I once read that before beginning a historical novel, authors must immerse themselves in the history and culture of the period until they are essentially living there. I have often taken this admonishment to heart in my historical writing.

I love history and actually enjoy doing historical research. I like to root out the exact details of how history unfolded and later subject my characters to events as they really took place. This requires a lot of digging around in both the Internet and into printed material. I especially prize first-hand accounts by people who experienced the times about which I write. Sometimes, I buy used copies of the actual books to gain access to the information I seek. I recently purchased BARBED WIRE SURGEON, the memoirs of Dr. Alfred A. Weinstein, MD, a surgeon who served in the jungle hospitals during the defense of Bataan in 1942. When I write about my Navy Nurse protagonist working in these hospitals in my current project, ENDURE THE CRUEL SUN, I have the advantage of the point of view of someone who was there at the time. Nothing I could make up would be as horrible as the circumstances that actually took place.

My worktable is typically piled high with reference books. I also like to write on my big IMac desktop with my MacBook Air opened to Internet references beside it. When I need to insert a detail, I can usually get to it very quickly.

Lately, I have begun to believe that it is possible to do too much research. I am currently dealing with the Battle of the Coral Sea. This is not an easy battle to come to grips with. American Vice Admiral H.S. Duckworth described one day of the battle as, “Without a doubt…the most confused battle area in world history.” My challenge was to explain these circumstances to my readers in an interesting and entertaining way. (After all novelists are in the entertainment business.) I found myself reading Internet articles for hours, clicking on one link after another to dig for further details. Each question I answered seemed to raise several more. This created a problem as it broke the rhythm of my writing. I realized that I was actually enjoying my research too much. Research is, after all, a means to an end, not the end itself.

I recalled the old writer’s saw, “Don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story.” The story is paramount. The historical details are but the background against which the tale is set. I have to keep drumming this point into my head.

I’m trying now to limit my research to that necessary to get my basic story down in writing. I can always dig deeper during the rewrite and editing phases if I find that I need more detail.

I hope to soon get myself fully back on track, spinning stories of bombers diving on enemy carriers and submarines landing commandos on Japanese held islands. The yarn is all there, spinning around inside my head. All I have to do is get it down in type.

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Warren Bell is an author of historical fiction.  He spent 29 years as a US Naval Officer, and has traveled to most of the places in the world that he writes about.  A long-time World War II-buff, his first two novels, Fall Eagle One and Hold Back the Sun are set during World War II.  His third novel, Asphalt and Blood, follows the US Navy Seabees in Vietnam.  His most recent novel, Snowflakes in July, is a Pentagon thriller about domestic terrorism.  He is currently working on a new novel, Endure A Cruel Sun, the sequel to his best-selling novel, Hold Back the Sun. For more about Warren Bell, visit his website at: wbellauthor.com or see him on twitter @wbellauthor.

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Why I Write Novels About History

I have been interested in history for as long as I can remember. I started to school in 1942 during the bleakest days of the Second World War. Even in first grade, we knew that we were living in momentous times. Our chief entertainment outside the home in those days was the motion pictures we saw almost every weekend. Dramatic newsreels written to support the war effort screened between feature showings. We were routinely introduced to parts of the world that our parents hardly dreamed of in their childhoods.

The history we were taught in school was too often the dry memorization of dates and event names, but there were also other, more personal sources of historical data. At that time, many Civil War veterans were still alive, and some of the old soldiers loved to spin tales off that conflict. World War I veterans were quite common. All our grandparents had heard personal oral histories from their ancestors. Many of these stories were passed down from generation to generation.

I have always viewed history as the summation of the accomplishments of people. In the 1950s, many historians viewed their discipline through the prism of movements shaped by events. The personal influence of individual leaders was minimized. Events shaped the leaders, not vice versa. I never subscribed to this view. I grew up in an age of leadership giants. The personal accomplishments of men like Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill just didn’t fit into the view of events shaped history. Leadership giants still emerge in the world. Can anyone imagine modern South Africa in its present form without Nelson Mandela? I certainly can’t.

One thing our teachers did emphasize was George Santayana’s statement in his 1905 The Life of Reason that: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” The mistakes made by the Western Democracies during the 1930s that allowed Adolf Hitler to achieve supremacy in Europe were hammered into our brains.

I sometimes question whether history is taught at all in schools today. I know that my children did not receive a good grounding in the subject. If new generations do not understand what ideas have worked or not worked in the past, are they not likely to keep making the same mistakes over and over again?

A good case in point is to compare the workup to the 2003 invasion of Iraq with the early years of U.S. involvement in Vietnam. In both cases, civilian appointees in the Department of Defense believed that they understood the situations better than uniformed military officers. In both cases, an attempt was made to apply just enough military force to cause the enemy to capitulate. Civilians pared the order of battle for the Iraq invasion of elements considered critical by on-scene commanders. In neither case did civilian or military commanders have an understanding of the local cultural elements that would later play such vital roles. All the valuable experience in counterinsurgency that we gained in Vietnam seemed to have been largely forgotten. CI warfare had to be relearned and again paid for in blood.

In the last part of the Twentieth Century, collectivist governments failed all over the world. Communism and socialism proved to be unsustainable systems of governing. Many people in the United States do not seem to be aware of these facts. Some political candidates are again touting socialist principles.

My latest novel, Snowflakesin July, is set in the turbulent 1960s and 1970s when the New Left movement spawned a host of domestic Marxist terrorists.  But the Vietnamese Marxist state that came out of the war became one of history’s greatest failures. Capitalism now flourishes throughout Southeast Asia.

Take heed of history. Let’s stop making the same stupid mistakes over and over again. 

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Warren Bell is an author of historical fiction.  He spent 29 years as a US Naval Officer, and has traveled to most of the places in the world that he writes about.  A long-time World War II-buff, his first two novels, Fall Eagle One and Hold Back the Sun are set during World War II.  His third novel, Asphalt and Blood, follows the US Navy Seabees in Vietnam.  His most recent novel, Snowflakes in July, was released on Kindle on September 15, 2015, and a paperback version will be following.  For more about Warren Bell, visit his website at: wbellauthor.com or see him on twitter @wbellauthor.  

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Keeping Focused While Wrapping Up a Book

I am a lifelong fan of newspaper comic strips. When I was a young man, the comic strip characters with whom I identified were Steve Canyon and Buzz Sawyer. For those too young to remember, Steve was an Air Force aviator, while Buzz was a Navy test pilot. Today, however, I have more in common with Earl Pickles, a retiree who lives with his longtime wife, Opal. They are creations of the artist, Brian Crane, and the strip is entitled, Pickles.

One recent strip which I found entertaining opened with Opal coming into the room with Earl and saying, “I thing I’m getting the ‘but first’ syndrome.” Earl perks up and asks, “What’s that?” “You know,” Opal continues. “I start to do something but then decide to do something else first. But then I decide to do something before I do that. Pretty soon, I think of so many ‘but firsts’ that I forget what I started out to do originally.” “Whee!” mumbles Earl, wiping his brow. “I was afraid you were going to start walking around backwards.”

As I press forward to wrap up my new Vietnam novel, Asphalt and Blood, I fear I’m suffering from the “but first” syndrome. My mind should have a laser-like focus on the tasks remaining before the book can be launched. Instead, my attention keeps drifting to future writing projects. New characters, situations, and plot lines keeping popping into my head uninvited.  Two new series are trying to take over my mind.

I have dealt with this problem before. In my days as a U.S. Naval officer and municipal engineer, I began many writing projects. I would get to a certain point, and then work situations would require that I lay writing aside for a while. When time again became available, my mind tended to leap off on some other idea to write about. Only when I retired from my engineering jobs did I find the self discipline to see a novel through to the end. After I thought I had completed the manuscript for Fall Eagle One, I convinced an agent to take it on. Three extensive rewrites transpired before the book was ready to shop to publishers. Early 2002 proved a tough time to sell a book about aircraft attacking the continental U.S., so I had to have patience and wait for a better world situation.

Self discipline is required to get any writing project into print, especially for the Indie author. Doing everything that an agent and publisher’s editor do for the conventional writer can be a daunting task. Manuscripts must not only be well written and cleanly presented, but modifying formats for the Internet is also required. Covers must be designed or procured. Short, attractive descriptions of the work must be written. Internet publisher’s applications have to be precisely filled out and entered.

Just as important, one must have a strategic plan for marketing the new work. Teaser advertisements on social media need to be scheduled weeks ahead of publication to build up pent-up demand. Blog posts remain to be written, websites updated, new business cards printed. A site for launching must be chosen and scheduled far in advance. One must not forget press releases, both on the work itself and on the launching.

So I tell myself, “Suck it up, Bell! Get Asphaltand Blood on the street before you go off chasing a new idea. Those new characters and plot lines will not fade completely. They’ll still be there when the time comes to exploit them. In the meantime, get your nose back to the grindstone! As Snuffy Smith used to say in the comics, “Time’s a wastin’.”

The Nature of War

I write historical novels about war. My first book, Fall Eagle One, is about World War II in Europe. My second novel, Hold Back the Sun, is set in the opening months of the Pacific War in the Western Pacific. Asphalt and Blood, which is at the copy edit phase, tells the story of U.S. Navy Seabees in the Vietnam Battle for Hue City.

In order to write about war, one must understand it. I spent over 29 years in the U.S. Navy, of which seventeen months were in Vietnam. I hold the Navy’s Combat Action Ribbon. An amateur historian all my life, I have concentrated my studies on WW2. From personal experience and rigorous study, I believe that I have an understanding of modern warfare.

War is, by its very nature, barbaric and horrific. The purpose of war is to impose one’s will on the enemy through the use of military force. War is not a duel, with rules to assure that one opponent has no advantage over the other. War is successful only when the enemy loses the will to resist.

In today’s Washington Post, Eliot A. Cohen, former Counselor of the U.S. State Department, argues persuasively that many in today’s Washington, D.C., do not understand the nature of war. He points out that President Abraham Lincoln hated war as much as anyone on earth, yet he understood that winning the American Civil War required his generals to break the will of the Confederate population to continue the struggle. I assert in Fall Eagle One that Union generals invented the modern concept of Total War as it was practiced in WW2. The “scorched earth” campaigns carried out by General Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley and General Sherman’s March to the Sea in Georgia speak for themselves. Photographs of Richmond, Virginia, after its surrender look much like those of Berlin in 1945.

Only rigorous application of force makes possible a rapid conclusion of hostilities and a minimization of total casualties. Following the suicide bombing of U.S. Marines in Lebanon early in his administration, President Reagan ordered Caspar Weinberger, the Secretary of Defense, to develop a new doctrine for the use of military force. The resulting “Weinberger Doctrine,” sometimes called the “Weinberger/Powell Doctrine,” espoused the following: 

1. military force should only be used as a last resort in situations where key national interests are involved, 
2. military force should only be used in situations where a large majority of the U.S. public supports its use, and 
3. when military action is taken, it should be in such overwhelming force that the ensuing conflict is concluded quickly, thereby minimizing overall casualties. 

This doctrine governed U.S. military involvements through the NATO actions in the Balkans during the Clinton Administration. 

Unfortunately, sometime during the run-up to the Vietnam War, the competing doctrines of “Just Enough Force” and “Proportionality” crept into the conduct of war. For years, the U.S. attempted to apply just enough military pressure to force the North Vietnamese to give up their conquest of the South. When Moshe Dayan, the former Defense Minister of Israel, visited Vietnam in the 1960s, he was asked how the U.S. could end the war. His answer was direct: take the war to the enemy’s homeland. Because obliterating North Vietnam’s capacity to continue fighting was not even being considered, the Vietnam War dragged on for years.

“Proportionality” implies that, when attacked, the response should be no more severe than the attack. This doctrine seems especially attractive to reporters in the news media, who ask about it continually when interviewing combatants. “Proportionality” calls for a “leveling of the playing field,” a minimization of one side’s military advantages. In the context of warfare, “proportionality” guarantees prolonged conflict, which in turn maximizes total casualties. Pursuing this course is anathema to any competent military commander.

War is not some game. People suffer and die in war. It is not, as Chancellor Bismarck argued, simply “Diplomacy by other means.” As I said earlier, war is both barbaric and horrific. I believe that Secretary Weinberger and General Powell got it right on the use of military force.  Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin, and Harry Truman all understood the nature of war and applied overwhelming force to end WW2. Current world leaders could emulate their wisdom.

Note: Warren Bell is a historical fiction author with two novels for sale either for Kindle or in paperback from Amazon.com. Both are set during WWII, with Fall Eagle One taking place in Europe, and Hold Back the Sunset in the war in the Pacific.  

Balancing Accuracy and Readability in a Story

My current writing project, Asphalt and Blood, has reached the editing stage. The book follows the adventures of U.S. Navy Seabees during the 1968 Battle For Hue City. For the uninitiated, Seabees is a nickname for the famed Navy Construction Battalions formed during World War II to build advanced bases in the Pacific islands and for the war in Europe. Without the airfields, port facilities, and support facilities they constructed, neither the Pacific island campaigns nor the amphibious invasions in Europe would have been possible. On Iwo Jima, Marines put up a sign that read, “And when we reach the isles of Japan, with our hats at a jaunty tilt, We’ll enter the city of Tokyo, On roads that the Seabees built.” Seabees proved equally as crucial to the war efforts in Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

My wife and primary editor, Annette, is pouring over the work with an eagle eye.  Several chapters in, her most frequent criticism to date is that I have used too much of what she calls, “Seabee-ese.”  In other words, she believes that, in striving for accuracy in conversations between my characters, I have used too many acronyms, technical terms, and slang that only a fellow Seabee can understand. Going back over my text, I can see that she is right.

Here are some examples. In describing earthmovers, I used the standard designations, TD-6 and TS-24, etc. The TD stands for, “tractor-dozer, ” TS for “tractor-scraper.” Every Seabee would recognize this immediately. Likewise, all Seabees would understand the designation of characters by their position in the battalion organization, such as “ALPHA-6” for the company commander of A Company, the horizontal construction force, or “S-3” for the Operations Officer.  While this is actually the way that Seabees talk, use of such terms without explanation or in narrative passages can be very confusing to other readers. 

An author must continually keep the target audience in mind. My target audience for Asphalt and Blood is not only Seabees everywhere and of all ages but also the general military fiction readers of my first two works, Fall Eagle One and Hold Back the Sun.  Sometimes, precise technical accuracy must give way to the ability of general readership to quickly grasp the story.  The key editing question, “Does this move the story forward,” must be kept continually in mind.

In making my first pass through the manuscript with Annette’s comments in hand, “TD-6” is becoming “bulldozer” or “dozer.”  “ALPHA-6” in narrative will be replaced by the character’s name.  Organization positions used in dialog must be carefully but succinctly explained. When I worked in the Pentagon, all documents had to be subjected to what was called, “the idiot test.” The question, “could anyone from the general population be able to understand what the document was trying to convey” had to receive a positive answer. I’m sure that a new name applies now because of “political correctness,” but the gist remains the same. If readers become bogged down with confusion over words, they will likely lose interest and stop reading. The author has failed.

All this brings up another related question, “Can an author be too close to his/her subject?” When the author is closely and emotionally invested in the story, especially when writing about personal experiences, the tendency to make it “just like it actually happened” can be very powerful. When writing fiction, these urges must be subordinated to clearly relating the story. The reader must be stimulated to anticipate every page turn to learn what comes next.

Re-writing and editing takes discipline that every author must learn to become successful. In most cases, the use of a professional editor may be necessary. I know that Fall Eagle One, my debut novel, is immeasurably better because of a professional editor. It’s becoming clear that Asphalt and Blood could benefit from similar treatment. I still have a lot of work to do.

Note: Warren Bell is a historical fiction author with two novels for sale either for Kindle or in paperback from Amazon.com. Both are set during WWII, with Fall Eagle One taking place in Europe, and Hold Back the Sun set in the war in the Pacific. 

My Lifelong Fascination With Franklin Roosevelt

My debut World War II novel, Fall Eagle One, is about a fictional German Luftwaffe mission to assassinate President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) with early “smart” bombs. FDR is, of course, a major character in the book. I enjoyed researching his life in 1943-44 as background for my writing. I have been fascinated with Franklin Roosevelt all my life.

I was born in 1936, the fourth year of Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency. The United States was well into clawing its way out of the depths of the Great Depression. The best word to describe the attitude of working class Americans like my parents toward FDR during my early childhood is “reverence.” Tales of the hardships and privations undergone during the preceding years came readily to everyone’s lips. While the “reforms” of the New Deal were not making the country instantly prosperous again, FDR’s confident handling of our problems brought hope and promise. He was as close to a Messiah as people could imagine.

The conditions in which most Americans lived in the late 1930s would be considered abject poverty today. Only in cities did one find running water, indoor plumbing, central heating, and electricity.  Cash was a scarce commodity.  Food was often limited to bare staples. The New Deal tried to address all these problems, sometimes with a scalpel, often with a sledgehammer. To the majority of Americans, the important thing was that FDR was doing something.

In today’s technology-rich world, it is hard to imagine the importance we attached to huddling around a battery-powered radio in a wood fire heated house to listen to FDR’s “Fireside Chats.” FDR’s fatherly voice spoke to the American people in direct language that all could understand. He told us that, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” He gave us hope. Eventually, the country recovered, but not only as a result of the New Deal. FDR’s farsighted decisions on international affairs had a great deal to do with America regaining prosperity.

Franklin Roosevelt recognized early on that Adolf Hitler was evil incarnate. He concluded, long before the rest of Americans, that preventing a Nazi takeover of the western world would eventually require the intervention of U.S. armed forces. But there was no appetite among the populous for entering another European war. Isolationism was the order of the day. Organizations such as “America First” actively opposed all foreign wars. There was even an active and vocal American Nazi Party that supported Fascism. Most politicians would have bowed to the inevitable and done nothing to alienate so many voters. FDR was made of sterner stuff.

Beginning with his 1938 meeting with King George VI of England, FDR slowly forged a “Special Relationship” with the United Kingdom. When war broke out in 1939, FDR wrangled changes to neutrality laws to allow “cash and carry” sales to belligerents. Given the dominance of Britain’s Royal Navy, the only practical purchasers were the Western Allies. Of course, large purchases of American weapons and equipment helped revive the U.S. manufacturing sector.  When France fell in 1940, many of his advisors argued that there was no way to stop Hitler, that we should come to terms with him. Instead, FDR stuck with support of Britain.

Winston Churchill took the reins in the UK and swore to never surrender. Roosevelt had begun developing a friendship with the new Prime Minister while he was First Lord of the Admiralty. The relationship blossomed into a full if unofficial partnership. When Britain ran out of money, FDR conceived the “Lend Lease” program to keep up the flow of weapons. When U-boats threatened to cut the Brits’ seaborne lifeline, FDR swapped 50 old destroyers for valuable bases in the British Empire. Rommel’s victories in North Africa brought the occupation of Iceland by U.S. Marines to free British troops for the fighting. Extending the American Defense Zone to Iceland allowed the U.S. Navy to escort convoys halfway across the Atlantic, relieving the strain on the Royal Navy.  All the while, American industry expanded to become the “arsenal of democracy.”

In 1941, FDR held a shipboard meeting off Newfoundland and negotiated the Atlantic Charter, the foundation of what later became the United Nations.

On December 7, 1941, the Japanese relieved FDR from having to move behind the scenes to battle the Axis powers.  Unwisely, Hitler declared war on the U.S. a few days later. It remains arguable whether Congress would have declared war on Germany. The fury of the nation was focused on Japan. Before the beginning of the new year, America was embroiled in a world war for which we had no option but to win.

Roosevelt showed great wisdom in managing the war that future presidents would have done well to emulate. Confining himself (and Churchill) to setting broad policy and overall strategy, he left the details of running the war to his generals and admirals. The results speak for themselves. Entering the war with an already mobilized weapons industry, the U.S. out-produced the Axis into extinction. We flooded the battlefields and the skies with numbers far beyond what the enemy could field. Unfortunately, FDR did not live to see final victory.

The U.S. had not experienced such collective grief as it did over FDR’s passing since Lincoln was killed. I’ll admit that children my age at the time were not certain that it was possible to have someone else as president. Fortunately, Roosevelt’s choice of Harry Truman as his successor proved a good fit for the situation.

In the years after WW2, FDR’s crucial achievements were recognized and celebrated. Some later historians have focused on his faults.  Some claimed for a time that FDR knew that Pearl Harbor was to be attacked, that we had been able to read Japanese naval codes and had followed the task force across the Pacific by ship-to-ship radio signals.  Declassification of the 1941 Navy Intelligence files in this century proved that we could NOT read the codes before spring 1942. All Japanese accounts of the Pearl Harbor voyage state that absolute radio silence was maintained throughout. Ship-to-ship communications was limited to signal flags and lights.

Much has been made in recent years of FDR’s purported relationships with various women.  There is no doubt that he had an affair with Lucy Mercer, his wife’s social secretary, in 1918. This was shortly after Eleanor had left his bed to prevent further pregnancies.  Questions remain on whether and/or how many of his female acolytes he enjoyed affairs with. Polio had consigned him to a wheelchair since the 1920s, but it was his legs that were useless. He was not paralyzed.

My answer to all these critics is the old Toastmasters question, “So what?” Most great presidents have had active libidos, beginning with the Founding Fathers. FDR literally “saved the world for democracy.” He bore burdens of leadership that are unimaginable to most of us. The fact that he liked to relax with a cocktail or that he occasionally craved female companionship only proves that he was human. He will always be one of the giants of the 20^th Century. We could use some giants today.

Note: Warren Bell is a historical fiction author with two novels for sale either for Kindle or in paperback from Amazon.com. Both are set during WWII, with Fall Eagle One taking place in Europe, and Hold Back the Sun set in the war in the Pacific.  

Last Minute Books

Welcome to 'Last Minute Books' - a blog tour featuring a number of authors who would like to check that you've thought of absolutely everything for your holidays. Suitcase packed? Shoes, sandals, trainers, jeans, shorts, dresses, trousers, blouses, shirts......... sunglasses.... suntan lotion....  best smile? And, of course, forgive us do..... But your holiday reads too? Don't forget your reading device. You might prefer printed books but don't forget to pack that kindle or kobo - if that's what you prefer.

Sit back, rest, relax, enjoy the sunshine and let your mind slip away. It's holiday time. 

Let's see what questions the tour master has for our favourite authors and we'll try and find some book recommendations for you. Indeed, all our author friends have the same questions - But are their books the same? Let's see what Warren Bell has to say about holidays.

Q. Where would you recommend for a holiday, Warren?

A. Of all the holidays I’ve enjoyed, I think that the ten-day tour of Provence that my wife and I took in Southern France was my favorite. The people were warm and friendly. Highlights included everything from Roman amphitheaters built B.C. to museums housing the works of Picasso and Van Gogh.  We climbed mountains with medieval fortresses, toured five-story castles, viewed sweeping fields of Lavender, and toured vineyards and wineries. My favorite thing about Provence was the wonderful food and Rose wine. Every meal became a culinary delight. Happy waiters kept replenishing the fabulous baguettes and wine as long as we sat at the table. Unfortunately, I brought home several more pounds around my waist than I had on the trip over.

Q. What kind of a holiday do you particularly enjoy?

A.  My wife and I like to take organized tours where a skilled planner does all the work of organizing the sites, food, etc., leaving us to just enjoy our time. We especially like tours in Europe. We have been to London, Scotland, Bavaria, Switzerland, and of course Provence.  Trips with a central base hotel with day trips around the country are our favorites.

Q. If you could pack someone special in your suitcase, who would it be and why?

A. I think Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  I believe that he was one of the most indispensable men of the Twentieth Century, and I have many questions I would like to ask him. He also knew how to have a really good time.

Q. How do you relax on holiday, or you one for rushing around seeing the sights?

A. I certainly enjoy seeing the sights. Being an amateur historian, there are many places in the world I want to view first-hand. I also love to relax over a superb meal with fine wines. In my experience, nowhere are these better than in Provence.  

Q. What books would you recommend for this years holiday and why?

1.  I would recommend anything by either Bernard Cornwell or Wilbur Smith. Of course, I would be pleased if some chose one of my novels, Fall Eagle One and Hold Back the Sun. Details and ordering information are included on my webpage. For myself, I’m currently reading Zoe Saadia’s excellent series on the Rise of the Aztecs in Mesoamerica. I’ll probably take along a couple on my laptop.

              

           

Thanks for taking part in this chat. Have a great holiday everyone. Now don't forget your last minute books. But why don't you take a short trip with me through cyber space and visit the following AUTHORS ON TOUR to see what they recommend for a good holiday read.

Jerrie Alexander http://www.jerriealexander.com/

Warren Bell http://warrenbellauthor.blogspot.co.uk/

Joan Fallon http://www.joanfallon.co.uk/blog.html
J G Harlond http://www.jgharlond.name/

Khalid Muhammad http://www.agencyrules.com/

Corinne Champagne http://paulanthonys.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/corinnes-last-minute-books.html

Paul Anthony  http://paulanthonys.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/last-minute-books.html

The Most Terrifying Moments of My Life

Yesterday was the 50^th anniversary of the most terrifying moments I ever experienced. March 27, 1964 became a turning point in my life.

In 1964, I was stationed at the U.S. Naval Station, Kodiak, Alaska. In late afternoon on March 27, the Public Works staff was working late on our new budget for the next fiscal year. At a little before 5:30 p.m., I took a break to get a drink from the fountain. Our water was basically free, so the flow ran all the time. As I bent to take a sip, the stream of water suddenly began to waver, and then I felt a trembling begin beneath my feet. I commented to a nearby janitor that the williwaw winds of the Aleutians were especially strong that day. He said quickly that it was an earthquake. And not just any quake. Later measured at 9.2 on the Richter Scale, the Great Alaska Earthquake was the most severe shake ever to occur in North America

The old WW2 vintage wood-framed building began shaking violently and making groans and pops that seemed to announce its imminent collapse. No one in the office hesitated. We dropped what we were doing and ran outside in our shirtsleeves, forgetting that the temperature was about 15 degrees F. Other people streamed out of the close-by civilian barracks. We all stood awestruck, working hard to keep our balance on the rippling earth beneath our feet. On nearby Old Woman Mountain, the base water tower swayed drunkenly, splashing water out the top. We were certain it would topple. The violent shaking went on for what seemed an eternity, filling our ears with a deep, threatening rumbling.

As we stood there shivering, Lieutenant Lee Doebler, the Assistant Public Works Officer, suddenly said, “Screw it. I’m not freezing to death.” Without hesitation, he went back into the quivering building, emerging a few minutes later wearing his “Kodiak mink” parka and carrying an armload of hooded anoraks. The other officers donned them gratefully. Lee also brought the base utility blueprints.

Many of the civilians from the barracks were our trade supervisors. Lieutenant Commander “Red” Raber, the Public Works Officer, was soon organizing them into survey teams to tour the base and spot utility breaks and other urgent damage. Several teams departed even before the earth finally stopped shaking. In the eerie silence that followed, we realized that power was off to the base.

After tasking Lee Doebler and me to set up an emergency response control center, Commander Raber left for our steam-powered electric plant to restore electricity. Night was coming on quickly, and artificial light was a necessity. After less than an hour, word came from the Air Force weather station on the western tip of Kodiak that a tidal wave was headed toward our base. An order for everyone to evacuate to the Naval Communications Station up in the mountains came soon thereafter.

I can imagine what Hollywood producers would do with this scenario. They would envision desperate people jamming the streets and honking horns. Panic would reign supreme. People would be fighting to get to the head of the line. In fact, quite the opposite occurred.

Almost all the men on the Naval Station were either still on duty when the earthquake hit or reported immediately thereafter. They were all soon working quickly to organize the evacuation. Essential survival gear was broken out and loaded on vehicles. Base security trucks cruised the streets, announcing the evacuation orders by loudspeaker. Completing as much work as possible within the time remaining, the Public Works survey crews were some of the last to depart.

In military and civilian housing, the wives banded together, bundled up their children, and packed their cars with food. Those with vehicles took those without transportation aboard. In an orderly, courteous fashion, the women crept through crowded streets until free of the main gate. Security teams waited at the communications base to direct them to shelter in buildings. As an essential service, the COMSTA had 100 percent emergency power backup, so the lights were burning and the heat was on. The wives of the base’s chief petty officers took charge and got everyone settled in.

My final job was to see that all the equipment in the motor pool made it safely off base. The pool crew and I passed out keys to anyone who happened by. Finally, we started departing ourselves. I got the last set of keys. It was to a 4-wheel drive, crew-cam pickup truck with a stick shift. I’d never driven one, but I figured it out after a few minutes. I believe that, other than the roving Security crews, I was the last person off the Naval Station. 

At the NAVCOMSTA, I found my wife, Annette, and our two small children safe and sound at the Acey-Deucy Club. Lee Doebler was there with his drawings, as were most of the survey crews. Lee and the trade supervisors started organizing the recovery effort while we waited for the tidal wave: marking breaks on the drawings, identifying materials needed for repairs and the sources in the warehouses. Midway through this effort, Commander Raber and the power plant crew came in. The commander’s uniform was covered with oil below his armpits.

When the tidal wave warning came, Commander Raber ordered the power plant crew to remain in place and shut down and vent the boilers. Otherwise, the freezing water would have caused explosions that would cripple the plant for an extended period. The crew remained in place until water began to flood into the building. After tying themselves together with a long extension cord, Raber led the crew to safety uphill from the plant. They had to wade out through five-foot deep floodwater coated with oil from a broken pipeline.

Numerous separate tidal waves ravaged the base before midnight. When they finally subsided, there was no electricity, heat, or other essential services. The berthing piers were shambles of broken timbers. The Public Works crews entered the base first. Before dawn, they repaired 27 major water breaks, restoring service. When the sun came up, the water ran and the toilets flushed. The difference that made proved immense.

I would need ten blog posts to tell the whole story. Except for some severe aftershocks, the time of stark terror had passed. Restoring all essential services would consume weeks; repairs, months and years. Those of you who have watched Coast Guard Alaska on the National Geographic Channel have seen the results of our work. The hangars, parking aprons, and runways shown at the Kodiak Coast Guard base are those we worked on.

For his exemplary service during the recovery, LT Lee Doebler was awarded the Navy Commendation Medal. Commander “Red” Raber was decorated with the Legion of Merit. This old Seabee also received his first “mention in dispatches.”

Note: Warren Bell is a historical fiction author with two novels for sale either for Kindle or in paperback from Amazon.com. Both are set during WWII, with Fall Eagle One taking place in Europe, and Hold Back the Sun set in the war in the Pacific. 

Recalling Another Lost Airliner

Today’s headlines and TV news are filled with speculation about what has happened to Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370. The Boeing 777 vanished from radar last Saturday. Each day brings new evidence and new theories of the fate of the plane and the 239 souls aboard. A map in this morning’s Washington Post shows the entire Far East with circles drawn showing how far the plane could have flown on the fuel aboard. While reading the accompanying article, I was struck by how eerily similar the MH 370 mystery is to one I uncovered while doing research for my latest novel, Hold Back the Sun.

Hold Back the Sun begins with a Pan American Clipper flying boat flight across the Pacific from San Francisco to Manila in the Philippines. When this service was begun in the 1930s, the Pacific was a vast stretch of open water with few aids to navigation, as we understand them today. Fuel capacity limited the flights to daylight island-hopping. Nights were spent in posh hotels ashore. The four-engine aircraft rode radio beacons from island to island.  The price of a passenger ticket was the equivalent of about $5,000 in today’s currency.  Only airmail contracts with the U.S. government made the flights profitable. For businessmen, cutting the trans-Pacific travel time from 30 days on a ship to five days flying made the flights attractive.

The last stop before Manila was on the U.S. controlled island of Guam. About 136 miles to the north, the Japanese-owned island of Saipan was home to a major base of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN).

At about 12:15 p.m. Manila time on July 29, 1938, The Pan Am flying boat, Hawaii Clipper, reported its noon position by radio to airline stations in Guam and the Philippines. At that time, the plane was about 582 nautical miles east-southeast of Manila and on schedule for arrival in the Philippines. No contact with the aircraft ever occurred after that transmission. The Martin 130 aircraft and its passengers and crew simply vanished. A widespread air and surface search of the projected course found no wreckage, but an oil slick was encountered. Samples of the oil were taken and tested, but proved not to be oil from the aircraft.  With war raging in China and about to begin in Europe, the fate of Hawaii Clipper and the people aboard soon faded from the news. It remained a total mystery until the end of the Pacific War.

In the late 1940s, rumors began to circulate among the relatives of the people lost on Hawaii Clipper. One story attributed to a U.S. Navy admiral was that the plane had been found in Japanese colors at Yokosuka Naval Base by occupying forces.  Another rumor suggested that IJN naval intelligence officers has alleged that they had hijacked Hawaii Clipper west of Guam and flown it to their new seaplane base on the island of Truk.  The purported motives behind this theft were to stop over three million American dollars aboard the flight from being delivered to the Chinese government by a prominent Chinese-American businessman.  Stealing the details of the latest Pratt and Whitney engines that powered the clipper was another possible reason.

The similarities of Hawaii Clipper’s loss to that of Amelia Earhart barely a year before soon spawned a number of theories and enthusiasts.  In 2000, after many years of research, Charles N. Hill published a book entitled, FIX ON THE RISING SUN: The Clipper Hijacking of 1938 –and the Ultimate M.I.A’s. Mr. Hill’s thesis was that two Saipan IJN officers hid in the plane’s baggage compartment, emerged soon after liftoff from Guam, and commandeered control of the flight. He believes that they then diverted the plane to Truk. While enroute, the Japanese officers supposedly forced the Pan Am navigator, George M. Davis, to file false position reports to make Pan Am believe that the plane remained on its planned course. Mr. Hill presents a fairly convincing case that the false position reports contained clues to point investigators to the actual destination—Truk Lagoon. Mr. Hill also documented conversations with native people on Truk in which they told of helping to bury a number of Caucasians in the foundations of an IJN hospital being built at the time.  He was unable to get government permission to dig under the foundations to test the veracity of the stories.

Mr. Hill died without ever getting to prove or disprove his theories.  Guy Noffsinger, a former U.S. Navy intelligence officer, has taken up the quest for the missing clipper. He has a website on the subject at http://lostclipper.com. Mr. Noffinger has also traveled to Truk and believes that he has identified the slab beneath which the crew and passengers of Hawaii Clipper are allegedly buried. He plans to return to Truk this year and is optimistic that he will be able to examine the site with ground penetrating sonar and perhaps excavate. I hope that Mr. Noffsinger is successful. Bringing closure to the descendants and relatives of the nine crew members and six passengers lost with the plane would be well worth the effort.

Note: Warren Bell is a historical fiction author with two novels for sale either for Kindle or in paperback from Amazon.com. Both are set during WWII, with Fall Eagle One taking place in Europe, and Hold Back the Sun set in the war in the Pacific.