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 Agony of Rewriting

When I was at the 2000 Maui Writer’s Conference, I attended several classes conducted by successful literary agents on the writing and publishing process.  One theme kept recurring in all the talks: “If your manuscript is accepted by an agent, expect to have to rewrite it several times before submission to publishers.”  Many in the classes were alarmed at this revelation. Having studied James Michener’s Advice to Beginning Authors, I was not one of them. Michener did not consider himself a good writer, but he felt that he was an excellent rewriter.  He considered the secret to his runaway success to be his ability to pare and prune his drafts of extraneous material.

I was fortunate to come away from the conference with acceptance of my manuscript of Fall Eagle One by a very reputable literary agency. I quickly discovered that the instructors at Maui were right on target. Following initial discussions with the agent assigned to me, He recommended that I work with a private editor to rewrite my manuscript. The editor he recommended, Ed Stackler of Stackler Editorial Agency (stackler@aol.com), first read my manuscript and gave it a thorough critique.  Ed is an excellent editor. He pointed out many weaknesses, including some main characters, that needed correcting, not the least of which was my tendency to over-explain just about everything. 

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I am a product of my education. My first two degrees were in civil engineering. All engineers have a passion to understand how things work.  Many also are natural teachers who hunger to explain what they know to those around them.  For example, after I thoroughly researched the German system of defenses against the Royal Air Force’s nightly bombings, I thought my readers would like to know the exact details. Many of my carefully crafted descriptions bore Ed’s notation, “Excessive exposition-does not move the story forward.” That last phrase became a mantra for my editing and rewriting: “If it doesn’t move the story forward, cut or severely compress it.”

Such rewriting is easier said than done, and it can be painful. I think all authors view their work as parents view their children.  Discarding hours of hard research and writing takes great self-discipline. It hurt, for instance, to discard my careful description of Berlin’s massive flak tower/air raid shelters.  But after careful consideration, I had to agree with Ed’s comments. I cut one page to two sentences.  This process includes a careful balancing act. As I wrote in a previous blog post, the reader needs to be able to mentally visualize the story.  Or as the British say, “Put in the picture.” Sensory notations—how the scene looks, smells, tastes, etc.—are  necessary elements.  One needs the readers to feel that, “They are there.”  But always in the background must loom that question, "Does it move the story forward?”

Even more painful can be modifying or eliminating characters. After two or three rewrites, Ed kept questioning one of my major characters—Hermann Goering’s technical adjutant, who devises the scheme upon which the plot rests.  Ed felt he was “a cold fish,” and that he needed major change.  I was surprised by his proposal. I had based the character on an actual Luftwaffe officer who served on Goering’s staff.  But by then, I had come to completely trust Ed’s judgment.  I went back to basic research and soon discovered another actual person upon whom to base my character.  Thus was born perhaps the best character in Fall Eagle One: Major Siegfried von Rall, a swashbuckling frontline bomber commander rated as, “the best pilot in the Luftwaffe.”  Along with Siegfried came my strongest female characters: his mother, a Prussian countess, and his love interest, a woman physician.  Following this last rewrite, both Ed and my agent pronounced the novel ready to shop to publishers. 

Unfortunately, all our work fell on deaf ears at that time.  We were shopping the book in early months of 2002.  We soon learned that publishers were not ready to print a book about aircraft attacking the continental U.S. that soon after the terrorist attacks of 9/11/2001. Fall Eagle One had to be set aside for a more propitious time.

The story has a happy ending.  The Amazon Kindle version of Fall Eagle One went live in November 2011, and the paperback version on Amazon.com followed the next January.  The book was chosen as a Semifinalist in the Kindle Book Review Best Indie Books of 2012. It sold in the upper 1-2 percent of Kindle sales throughout 2013, and sales remain strong.  The book currently has 61 customer reviews on Amazon.com with an average rating of 4.5 out of 5 Stars. Thirty-seven of the reviews are 5-Star. The latest calls it, “One of the best WW2 books ever.” Hard work does pay off.  

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.   

Photo: Lord van Tasm at German Wikipedia [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or CC-BY-SA-3.0-de (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en)], via Wikimedia Commons

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. 

Sharpening My Perspective on the Vietnam War

During the past few weeks, I have been plugging away on my new novel, Asphalt and Blood: U.S. Navy Seabees in the Battle for Hue City.  Although I’m depending heavily on my notes I took while I was there in the 1960s and interviews with other Seabee veterans, I also remain alert for new material from other sources. I recently found some excellent material on a media I’ve told my readers before not to trust: my television set.

While casting about for anything worthwhile in a barren wasteland last Monday evening, I stumbled onto a pair of Vietnam War shows on the Military Channel.  The American Heroes Channel, a group previously unknown to me, produced both programs. The first revealed newly discovered combat film taken during the Battle of Dak To. The horrors of jungle combat with the superbly equipped, highly professional North Vietnamese Army (NVA) were presented in all their raw detail.  Soldiers were seen being shot and blown apart with mortar bombs exactly as it happened. This was not reenactment. It was taken live during the battle. Combat cameramen went right in with the infantry as they penetrated triple canopy jungle to assault hilltop positions. The program drove home to me that Vietnam was not a homogenized war. It was a number of different wars being fought simultaneously, details depending on terrain and environment. Our troops had widely varying experiences according to where they fought.  When writing about Vietnam, an author must be sure to describe the right war for the geographical setting.

The second show I watched was called Against the Odds and covered the first half of the Battle for Hue City in 1968. I decided to watch the program to refresh my memories of Hue and its surroundings. I was soon struck by how accurate the producers got this one. For the first time I have seen on American television, the Hue battle was portrayed for what it was, a victorious fight against impossible odds by a few half-strength companies of U.S. Marines. During the Tet holiday celebrations, the NVA slipped nine regiments of highly trained troops inside Hue, seizing three fourths of the city overnight. The Marines at Camp Eagle in nearby Phu Bai had no concept of the enemy’s strength. Responding to calls for help from the besieged Military Assistance Command (MACV) compound in South Hue, a force of less that a company of Marines was originally dispatched. This group was heavily engaged by the NVA soon after entering Hue. Calls for reinforcements brought a few more small companies, and the Marines finally reached MACV.

As the overwhelming strength of the NVA became apparent through “reconnaissance in force,“ more individual Marine companies were fed into the battle. They still were unaware that the odds were about 100 to one against them. And this was not the sort of war for which they had been trained. In 1968, Counter-insurgency was the style of fighting American troops expected.  A few Marine captains soon realized that they now had to fight a battle more akin to that in Stalingrad in World War II, street-to-street, house-to-house, room-by-room. Amazingly, the young Marines quickly adapted and began to win these battles in microcosm. They were Americans and had been brought up to think for themselves. They were Marines, a band-of-brothers fiercely loyal to each other and to the Corps. And as one Hue veteran so aptly stated, “There is no fighting machine in the world as destructive as a pissed-off nineteen-year-old Marine.” And so they persevered, although many of them were walking wounded. One wounded captain continued fighting until he collapsed. His men brought him a wounded chaplain, who administered last rites. The captain’s dying words were, “God, please take care of my Marines.” Amazingly, these few hundred kids finishing clearing South Hue to the Perfume River, then boarded landing craft to cross to the north bank. 

Against the Odds closes at this point. The battle for the Hue Citadel was an equally amazing story. These were Nineteenth Century French-designed fortifications of stone blocks and brick enclosing tightly packed residential areas, the former emperor’s compound, and shrines. One paramount fact that the TV program omitted was that the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) 1^st Division held onto their fortress in the northern corner of the city.  Again, a few companies of Marines entered the walls through the 1^st Division compound and fought another house-to-house battle to evict literally regiments of NVA. It was said of the Marines in the Battle of Iwo Jima that, “Uncommon valor was a common virtue.” No less was true of the young Marines at Hue City. One of the tragedies of the Vietnam War was that their accomplishments were not properly recognized at the time. In fact, a large segment of the media ridiculed the battle, arguing that the time it took to retake Hue revealed American ineffectiveness. Such slanted reporting caused many of us that were then “in-country” to lose trust in the veracity of the media.

The Battle for Hue City is central to Asphalt and Blood. My story relates how U.S. Navy Seabees worked alongside the Marines, sharing their familiarity with the city, bridging canals and providing other essential construction support. I hope veterans consider my novel to be as accurate as I found Against the Odds.

Photo Caption: Flagtower Citadel of Huế with NVA flag flying.

Photo Credit: By Arabsalam (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Note: Warren Bell is a historical fiction author with two novels released and 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. 

The Pacific War was About Oil

In the latter part of his life, U.S. Navy Admiral Hyman Rickover predicted that the next wars the United States fought would be over access to oil. His conclusions proved remarkably accurate. The last ten years have seen the U.S. involved in conflicts in the Middle East, source of some of the world’s largest oil reserves.

For several decades, the U.S. has been a net oil importer. As local reserves diminished, it proved too easy to just replace them with foreign purchases. The point that modern industrial society cannot support itself without reliable sources of energy seemed to be forgotten. Then the Arab Oil Embargo of the 1970s shattered our illusions. The United States had become an an oil “have-not.”

Japan faced an energy crisis in 1941 that led directly to their attack on western colonies in the Far East. Since the opening of Japan to world trade by Admiral Perry in the mid-Nineteenth Century, the country had been striving to become a modern industrialized nation. From an archaic feudal society, the country made a great leap forward into the modern world. Desiring all the trappings of a major power, Japan turned to Germany to build her army and to Great Britain to construct an up-to-date navy. Consultants from all over the world helped develop their heavy industry.

Japan lacked one key ingredient to fulfill their aspirations—a local supply natural resources. Like many nations, they were forced to purchase them abroad. The U.S. was a major player in this trade, becoming Japan’s major source of oil and the scrap iron required to produce steel. While fostering world trade, these imports created a balance of payments problem for the Japanese. They successfully negotiated this situation until the 1920s.

The Great Depression hit Japan particularly hard. The hardships being endured prompted many ultra nationalists in the armed forces to advocate seizing the needed resources from their neighbors. Everything they needed waited just over the horizon. As more and more recruits joined their ranks, these aggressive thoughts were translated into action. The semi-autonomous Kwantung Army in Korea invaded and occupied Manchuria with its rich mineral deposits. When the League of Nations protested, Japan walked out.  Then, in 1937, Japan invaded China itself,

beginning a protracted conflict.

Long committed to its “Open Door” policy concerning China, the U.S. protested. Inspired by Pearl S. Buck’s novels and Hollywood movies, many Americans held romanticized views of China. The Japanese, however, persisted in their conquests. Sentiment built in the Roosevelt administration to impose sanctions on Japan.

When Japan occupied French Indochina (now Vietnam) in 1941, Washington finally acted, freezing Japanese assets in the U.S. This had the immediate effect of shutting off exports to Japan.  The U.S. oil tap was suddenly turned off. The finite reserves of petroleum products within Japan became a wasting asset.  Japan’s civilian government began negotiations with the U.S., attempting to find an acceptable resolution to the crisis. The ultra nationalists in the Army began pushing for a military solution.

One faction advocated invading Siberia. Hitler’s armies were, after all, at the gates of Moscow. The navy argued for a quick strike to the south. The lightly defended Dutch East Indies (Indonesia today) possessed a mammoth oil industry exploiting huge underground reserves.  The oilfields on Tarakan Island yielded crude so pure that it could be burned in boilers without refining. The Royal Dutch Shell refinery at Balikpapan in Borneo was the world’s third largest, producing sufficient product to satisfy the navy’s entire needs.

Two major obstacles fell in the way of the southern plan: The British forces stationed at Fortress Singapore and the U.S. forces in the Philippine Islands. Britain was stretched to the limit in her war with Germany, but the U.S. was not yet a belligerent. Roosevelt had moved the U.S. Pacific Fleet to Pearl Harbor, where it could respond quicker to trouble in the Philippines.

The brilliant General Tomoyuki Yamashita devised a workable plan to capture Singapore from inland. Navy Admiral Yamamoto’s staff conceived the idea of destroying the U.S. Pacific Fleet in port at the outset of hostilities, delaying America’s intervention. Then Washington further shocked Tokyo with a demand that Japan withdraw from China before sanctions would be lifted. The civilian government in Tokyo collapsed, and General Tojo became Prime Minister. Faced with the humiliation of withdrawal or exhaustion of fuel supplies, Tojo argued for war. With the Emperor’s approval, the date for hostilities to commence was set.

For the first six months, Japan ran wild in the Far East, seizing all the territories in their ambitions. Ironically, the Dutch Oil executives adopted a “scorched earth” policy. Nothing was to be left to the invaders. They plugged oil wells, blew up pipelines and set fire to their precious refineries. When the Japanese invaded Balikpapan, they found only burnt, twisted wreckage at the oil facilities. The enraged Japanese commander ordered the massacre of the entire Caucasian population. Some were beheaded. Most were machine gunned in the surf. A similar massacre of Dutch males occurred in Tjepu, Java.

Japan soon had the oilfields back in operation and new refineries constructed. Oil was not a problem again until U.S. submarines sank a large percentage of their tankers later in the war.

The philosopher, George Santayana, observed that nations that do not study history are doomed to repeat it. After three wars to assure oil supplies, the U.S. should develop its newly discovered oil reserves and strive for energy independence.

Note: Warren Bell is a historical fiction author with two novels released and 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 is set in the war in the Pacific.

Japanese Response to Chinese Ambassador’s Op-Ed

My blog post last week, “Revisiting Japan’s Conduct in the Pacific War,” received a lot of attention. Many people visited the blog all throughout the week. As you’ll recall, the post was prompted by an op-ed in theWashington Post by the ChineseAmbassador to the U.S.

This morning, the Post Editorial Page published a response entitled, “China’s anti-Japan Campaign,” by Kenichiro Sasae, Japan’s ambassador in Washington.  Mr. Sasae basically dismissed the Chinese article as part of an anti-Japanese propaganda campaign. He argues that it is China, not Japan, that threatens the future peace of Asia today.

I found a number of interesting points in Mr. Sasae’s column. This is how he describes the Yasukuni Shrine: 

“a place where the souls of those who sacrificed their lives for the country…have been enshrined. Japanese people visit the shrine to pray for the souls of the war dead—not to glorify war or honor or justify a small number (14) of Class A war criminals.”

This assertion is mostly correct as far as it goes. Honoring war dead as a group is done throughout the world. But it is not necessarily the Shinto shrine but the accompanying museum that sets Asian teeth on edge. Presenting over a dozen Class A war criminals as national heroes is offensive to many of the nations victimized by Japan’s aggression. What would the world think if Germany enshrined Hitler, Goering, Himmler and Admiral Donitz as war gods? Even if the shrine honored all the other German war dead, including these evil men would be an affront to humanity. Men who ordered wholesale atrocities should be roundly condemned, not honored. 

About the war in general, Mr. Sasae reports that, “

“The government of Japan has repeatedly expressed deep remorse and heartfelt apologies regarding the war. So did the prime minister after his recent visit to Yasukuni; he said that ‘Japan must never wage war again’ based on ‘the severe remorse for the past.’”

Japan has apologized for the war in general. However, many of the captives enslaved by Japan had to fight in court for decades to receive an apology and obtain any compensation for their ordeal. The case of the over 200,000 “comfort women” who were sex slaves for the Japanese armed forces is a case in point. In last week’s post, I listed several excellent references on this subject. Half a century elapsed before Japan finally admitted that the “comfort stations” were in fact run by the army. An apology was finally issued. Many politicians still assert that the women became prostitutes voluntarily and were adequately compensated by client fees at the time.  Just Google “comfort women,” and you’ll receive a wealth of information refuting these allegations.

Mr. Sasae’s statement that China is currently much more of a threat than Japan to dominate does resonate.  He bemoans,

“…China’s unparalleled military buildup and its use of military and mercantile coercion against neighboring states. The most recent example of this is Beijing’s unilateral declaration of an air defense identification zone. China has escalated the intrusion of government vessels into the territorial sea of the waters around the Senkaku Islands and in waters claimed by the Philippines.”

Considering the situation in Asia today, Mr. Sasae may be right here. Japan has remained a peaceful nation for over 50 years since World War II. But the acts of Japan’s armed forces during the Pacific War were unquestionably horrific. Their victims may someday be willing to forgive them, but these crimes must never be forgotten.   

Revisiting Japan’s Conduct During the Pacific War

This morning’s Washington Post contained an editorial entitled Dangerous Tribute by Chu Tiankai, China’s ambassador to the United States and former ambassador to Japan.  Mr. Tiankai logically argues that the recent visit by Japan’s Prime Minister to the Yasukuni Shrine symbolizes support for the view that Japan was not an aggressor and committed no atrocities in World War II.

Several passages in the editorial caught my attention. Here are a few:

“Established in the 19th century to honor Japan’s war dead, the shrine imparted a spiritual dimension to Japanese militarism and colonial rule…”

“Fourteen Class A War criminals who were tried by the International Military Tribunal are honored at Yasukuni.”

“The shrine includes s…a deliberately revisionist narrative of World War II (that) lauds Japan’s salvage of Asian countries from colonial rule and detains ‘crimes committed by the United States.”

“His (the Prime Minister’s) assertions, when talking about World War II, that the term, ‘aggression’ has yet to be defined and that no evidence exists proving that “comfort women” were forced into sexual servitude…”

I have visited the Yasukuni Shrine, and I can confirm that Mr. Tiankai’s assertions about it are correct. The earlier exhibits, which detail modern Japan’s wars prior to their invasion of China in the 1930s, are all both in English and Japanese. From that point forward, only Japanese texts are presented. But, being a World War II buff, I had no problems identifying the portraits of the deified General Tojo and Admirals Yamamoto and Nagumo, who conceived and executed the Pearl Harbor attack. You read that right. In the Shinto religion, these criminals have become war gods.  The Prime Minister’s visit can be construed as worshiping them.

One of the reasons that Japanese soldiers readily obeyed orders to slaughter prisoners and innocent civilians was the provision of their Senjinkun (Field Service Code) that equated an order from a superior as a direct order from the emperor. Hence, an order became a pronouncement from God. Coupled with the Samurai principle that death was better than surrender and that anyone who surrendered had forfeited all honor, the opportunities for abuse became infinite.

A review on Amazon of my novel, Hold Back the Sun, suggested that I was too hard on my Japanese characters. I believe that I may not have been hard enough.  The atrocities I portrayed in my story are all based on actual events of which I learned through exhaustive research. For anyone who remains doubtful, I suggest they read all or some of my following references.  Also look on Google.

1) The Rising Sun by Arthur Zich, Time Life Books, Chapter 3, Under the Conquerors’ Rule. Describes the actual massacres at Balikpapan (in Borneo) and Tjepu(in Java) upon which I based the story of the fall ofZwarte Gouden.

2) The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang, Basic Books-Publisher. Describes the fall and systematic terrorizing of Nanking in graphic detail. The last word on the subject. Over 300,000 civilians were massacred and countless women raped.

3) But Not in Shame by John Toland. Random House. Relates the rape and murder of British nurses at Hong Kong (mentioned in Hold Back the Sun) and extensive massacres of Chinese immigrants following the fall of Singapore.

4) Hidden Horrors by Yuki Tanaka, Westview Press. A general compendium of Japanese atrocities during World War II.

5) Kempei Tai by Richard Deacon, Charles Tuttle Company. An extensive description of the deeds of Japan’s infamous military police, who committednumerious atrocities.

6) Prisoners of the Japanese by Gavan Daws, William Morrow and Company. A detailed account of the inhumane treatment received by Allied POWs at the hands of the Japanese.

7) War Without Mercy by John W. Dower, Pantheon Books. A no-holds-barred description of how racism shaped the Pacific War on both sides. Many Japanese atrocities are detailed.

8) The Comfort Women by George Hicks, W.W. Norton & Company. A well-researched and detailed history of sex slavery in the Japanese Army.

9) True Stories of the Korean Comfort Women Edited by Keith Howard, Casswell. A compendium of memoirs by Korean women forced into sexual slavery

10) 50 Years of Silence by Jan Ruff-O’Herne, Toppan Company (s) PTE Ltd. A compelling memoir of a young Dutchwoman who was kidnapped from an internment camp in Java and enslaved as a prostitute for Japanese officers.

In my view, the Japanese government’s continued denial of the savage conduct by her armed forces in China and the Pacific War remains an affront to humankind.

WHY I’LL REMEMBER 2013

The newspapers during the last few days have contained many reviews of 2013. Many of them are gloomy.  The U.S. Congress remained gridlocked during the year, stumbling from one crisis to another. The government was forced to shut down for several days. Fights over the implementation of the “Affordable” Health Care Act dominated politics and the news. Nelson Mandela passed away. The giants appear all gone, and mere humans are left to grapple with the problems of our times.

2013 was far kinder to me. When the year began, I was struggling to market my little-known novel, FALL EAGLE ONE, about a Nazi attempt to kill FDR. Sales were very modest, and I had few ideas about how to spread the word about my book. But I had asked my daughter, Karen Williams, to help me mount an Internet marketing campaign as my Christmas present. In late winter, we began the effort.

I already had a Facebook page, but it needed a lot of updating. Then Karen introduced me to Twitter. As soon as I grasped the “expanding ripples” effect of Twitter, I took to it readily.  Carefully studying how successful authors were using the media, I realized that one had to widely publicize the works of other authors to get them to publicize mine. I began devoting over an hour per day to Internet marketing. Meanwhile, Karen was building an author’s website for me.

By April 2013, FALL EAGLE ONE had climbed into the upper one percent of Kindle sales and has hovered in that range for the remainder of the year. It has 43 Amazon.com reviews with a 4.5-star out of 5 average rating. I spend about an hour and a half a day on marketing, but it has paid off handsomely.

I completed my second novel, HOLD BACK THE SUN, in the summer of 2013. Another World War II yarn, my new work follows the adventures of two U.S. Asiatic Fleet lieutenants during the opening months of the Pacific War. Karen built a YouTube trailer, which appears on my website. We launched the Kindle version of the new book in early August, and it quickly began to sell. When Amazon.com subdivided its bestseller lists in autumn, HOLD BACK THE SUN appeared as #8 in the historical fiction/Asian category. It soon climbed to #3 and has been in the upper 10 all year. It has 28 Amazon.com Reviews with a 4.3-star out of 5 average rating.

My third book, ASPHALT AND BLOOD, is already in the works. It will tell the story of how the U.S. Navy Seabees aided the Marines during the Battle for Hue City during the Vietnam War. My target launch is for Labor Day 2014.

I shall always remember 2013 as the year I could truthfully add the title, “author,” after my name.

Note: Warren Bell is a historical fiction author with two novels released and 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 is set in the war in the Pacific. Karen Williams, Marketing for Authors specializes in Marketing and PR for Independent Authors.  She can be reached through her website or at karenwilliamsmarketing@gmail.com.