How Japan Came to Dominate Naval Aviation

'Kido Butai'  by Marii Chernev

Three weeks ago, I set aside my writing to concentrate on getting my left knee replaced with a new titanium alloy and plastic marvel. My leg is recovering nicely, and daily physical therapy is rapidly improving my use of the new joint. The time has come to return to the war in the Southwest Pacific Theater in May of 1942.

I left almost equally balanced American and Japanese naval air forces searching for each other in the vastness of the Coral Sea northeast of Australia.  Behind the Japanese strike force, a large invasion convoy is poised to spring through the Jounard Passage at the tip of New Guinea and seize the Allied bastion of Port Moresby, the last barrier before Australia.  How could a nation less that a hundred years removed from the Middle Ages be in a position to strike a deathblow to the world’s two foremost naval powers?

The dawn of fixed-wing aviation came at the beginning of the Twentieth Century. Hardly had the Wright brothers taken to the air than forward-thinking naval and military officers recognized the advantages that aircraft might offer in battle. Of prime importance was simply locating the enemy. Naval commanders had been limited to the range of vision of lookouts posted atop mastheads since naval warfare commenced. Aircraft promised to extend that vision far beyond the horizon. Planes operating from shore bases were almost immediately available. But what was really needed were aircraft that could operate from ships at sea. Both Britain’s Royal Navy (RN) and the United States Navy began experimenting with various ideas even before World War I.

The use of seaplanes with floats, that allowed takeoffs and landings on water, became an obvious first step. Seaplane tenders, equipped with heavy cranes to transfer the aircraft between ship and water, became the first aircraft carriers.  The RN pressed ahead throughout the war, experimenting with foredeck landplane launch platforms, and then tacking on separate afterdeck landing decks with arrestor cables. Finally, the various concepts were combined on HMS Furious to provide a single long flight deck cleared of superstructure. On 2 August 1917, RN Squadron Commander E.H. Dunning made the first landing of a plane on a ship under way. The modern aircraft carrier had arrived.

Nowhere was the emerging naval aviation concept embraced more readily than by the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN). When Japan’s 19^th Century Emperor Meiji decided to modernize Japan, he and his governments decided to pattern their armed forces on those of the most successful European examples. Thus, Germany was chosen as the model Army. The British RN was the obvious choice for the new navy. Ties between the RN and IJN remained close well into the 20th Century. Japan actually conducted the world’s first successful naval launched air raid in September 1917, employing seaplanes from seaplane carrier IJN Wakamiya.

The IJN closely followed the RN aviation developments. As valued Allies against the Central Powers, IJN officers were allowed to observe operations and study the first purpose-built carrier design for HMS Hermes. Although begun later, IJN Hōshō became the world’s first built-from-scratch carrier.

In the 1920s, the western powers sought to limit the naval arms race by treaty limitations. Japan emerged from these negotiations very dissatisfied with the battleship and battle cruiser numbers and tonnage allowed to their empire. One area where the IJN retained significant flexibility was that of aircraft carrier construction. They took full advantage of this opportunity.

Japan immediately decided to convert to aircraft carriers two large battle cruisers then under construction. One was damaged beyond repair by an earthquake, but the second, IJN Akagi, went forward. An incomplete battleship, IJN Kaga, became the second new carrier. As soon as these ships joined the fleet, the IJN integrated them into fleet operations and developed their naval aviation doctrine. In the 1930s, more ships designed from the keel up filled out the fleet. IJN Sōryū and Hiryū were next off the building ways. At the end of the 1930s, IJN Shōkaku and IJN Zuikaku added additional punch to the fleet.

Japanese naval aviation experts gained further advantage because they were actually at war during the 1930s. New ideas could be tested under combat conditions. Unlike their western counterparts, IJN aviators came to believe that sea-based airpower should always be concentrated as much as possible. Raids combining the air groups of all ships available became their standard at a time that other navies tended to parcel out their carriers one or two at a time to protect their battle fleets. In a major war, IJN aviation was assigned the mission of seizing control of the air from the very beginning by massive attacks. The IJN understood “shock and awe” as early as the 1930s.

As fortune would have it, Japan’s rigid seniority-based promotion system elevated an aviation specialist, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, to the position of Commander-in-Chief of the Combined Fleet at this crucial point in history. Yamamoto had at his disposal a cadre of talented “young Turk” aviation staff officers and commanders, such as Lieutenant Commander Minoru Genda and Lieutenant Commander Mitsuo Fuchida. On their urging, he organized all six of his large carriers into the 1^st air Fleet, commonly known as the Kido Butai (Strike Force). To compliment the carrier forces. Yamamoto also built up a large force of twin-engine, long range shore based bombers especially trained in bomb and torpedo attacks against ships. Named the 11^th Air Fleet, this force could deploy rapidly to newly conquered bases to extend control of the air by hundreds of miles.

Japan’s aviation industry kept pace with the forward thinking navy visionaries. By 1940, the torpedo bombers and dive bombers being produced were at least as good as their western contemporaries. And in the Mitsubishi A6M “Zero” fighters, Japan possessed the finest carrier fighter in the world at that time. Designed to operate both off carriers and in support of the 11^th Air Fleet, the Zero possessed a phenomenal range of almost 1,200 miles.

Choosing IJN pilots and their training regimen were highly selective, resulting in almost perfect human specimens. For instance, candidates had to be able to see the primary navigation guide stars in broad daylight. Intense physical and instructive training characterized the program. Only a small percentage of each class actually achieved their coveted wings. Naval aviators were the elite of the elite. Combat experience in China honed this cadre of experts into a finely sharpened rapier. The process worked well in the relatively low level combat of the 1930s, but it was incapable of producing a large number of replacements to meet the demands of high intensity combat.

Kido Butai and the 11^th Air Fleet performed superbly in the opening months of the Pacific War, savaging the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor and sinking the Royal Navy’s battleship HMS Prince of Wales and battle cruiser Repulse in the Gulf of Siam. The protagonists of my second novel, Hold Back The Sun, battled elements of Japan’s naval aviation in the skies over Borneo and Java and over the seas in between. Chased out of the Dutch East Indies, my characters now face battle in the seas and skies of the Coral Sea northeast of Australia in my current work-in-progress, Endure The Cruel Sun. Will they meet defeat yet again? Or is fortune finally deserting the victory-drunk Japanese forces?

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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 September 15, 2015.  He is currently working on a new novel, Endure the 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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When Australia Was Under Siege

In the spring of 1942, the people of Australia felt that they were under siege. They had every reason to believe so. In the opening months of the Pacific War, Australians had watched one Allied bastion after another fall to the forces of Japan’s Rising Sun. Hong Kong collapsed almost immediately. The key American islands of Wake and Guam quickly followed. But the earthquake than shook the defense of the entire region occurred when the British Army in Singapore, which included Australian troops, surrendered to a numerically inferior Japanese force. Conquest of the Dutch East Indies came quickly afterwards. Only in the Philippines, where General Douglas MacArthur’s Filipino-American army on the Bataan Peninsula stubbornly held out, had the Japanese been held in check.

By this time, Australia had already come under direct attack. With the usual supply lines already cut, all Allied support to the Philippines and Dutch East Indies had to be funneled through the northern Australian port of Darwin. Japan’s planners took notice of Darwin’s importance. As Japanese forces prepared to wrap up their East Indies conquest, Tokyo sent Admiral Nagumo’s powerful carrier force, Kibu Butai, into the Indian Ocean to strike the British Royal Navy at Colombo, Ceylon, and block all lines of Allied retreat from Java. Sailing close to Australia, the six carriers launched a devastating air raid against Darwin, essentially destroying the town.  Savaging ships and aircraft in the area, the Japanese sailed on to pummel the Royal Navy near Ceylon and chase the remaining ships out into the Indian Ocean.

Many people in Australian coastal ports panicked. With Kibu Butai roaming the Indian Ocean at will, residents feared further air attacks or even bombardment by battleships. Many relocated as far inland as they could afford. Such fears were prevalent in the southwestern cities off Perth and its port, Freemantle.  These offered the only practical haven to the defeated Allied Naval forces trying to escape Java.

The situation to the north continued to deteriorate. Extending their East Indies conquest, the Japanese seized the Admiralty Islands and New Britain, with its magnificent harbor of Rabaul. Landings soon followed at Lae and Salamaua on the north coast of New Guinea.

In Mid-March, 1942, President Roosevelt ordered General MacArthur to break through the Japanese blockade and take command in Australia. When he reached Melbourne, he was appalled to discover that he had few forces at his disposal. Australia’s Army was in the Middle East fighting Rommel or in Japanese POW camps in Singapore. Australia was, in fact, very vulnerable to invasion. Continued air strikes against Darwin from the former Dutch East Indies and the appearance of enemy submarines off both the east and west coasts of Australia emphasized its vulnerability.

This is the situation into which I thrust my characters in my new novel, Endure the Cruel Sun (working title). Those who have read my second novel, Hold Back the Sun, will remember some of them at once. Dutch officers, Colonel Jan Dijker and Captain Garrit Laterveer, are prisoners of the Japanese. Unfortunately for the two officers, the Nazi Gestapo had asked that they be returned to Europe by submarine. Nurse Catherine van Zweden, Garrit’s fiancé, is in a civilian internment camp. What fate does the cruel Japanese Colonel Katsura Okuma have in store for her?

Dutch intelligence in Australia learns of the Gestapo’s request as a result of Allied codebreaking. They scramble to determine if there is any possibility of rescuing the former master spy and air ace.

Jack Sewell, promoted to Lieutenant Commander, now commands the old four-stack destroyer, Rust. With Japan marshaling for a full scale invasion of New Guinea, Allied naval commanders dragoon Rust into the Royal Australian Navy for the looming naval battle to seal Australia’s fate.

I plan to publish Endure the Cruel Sun early next fall. Those who have yet to read HoldBack the Sun may want to check it out before release of the new book.

On Amazon.com, Hold Back the Sun has 131 reviews with a 4.2 out of 5 stars overall rating. Forty-three percent of the reviews are five-star.

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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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Return to the Southwest Pacific

After venturing into different genres and different decades, I am returning to my first writing subject—The Second World War. Although my muse deserted me for a few months, she is back in full force, churning out scenes of combat, self-sacrifice, espionage, and romance. The venue is once again the Southwest Pacific Theater in the crucial middle months of 1942.

When I published my bestselling novel, HOLD BACK THE SUN (HBTS), I left several pieces of unfinished business in Java and Australia. My principal Dutch characters were in the hands of the Japanese conquerors. Having lost almost their entire strike force in the battles around Java, Allied naval forces were in disarray. Only in the Philippines, where General MacArthur’s Filipino-American Army still held out stubbornly on the Bataan Peninsula, had Japan’s forces been held in check.

My next novel, ENDURE THE CRUEL SUN (working title), begins about the time that HBTS concluded. Java has just fallen. Japanese forces seize islands north of Australia from the Allies. Steadily advancing eastward, a string of Japanese island air bases threatens to cut the essential shipping lanes between Pearl Harbor and Australia and New Zealand.

Having lost their Battle Fleet at Pearl Harbor, the U.S. Navy responds with their last ace-in-the-hole: the four aircraft carriers of the Pacific Fleet.  Air strikes against Japan’s outlying island bases culminate with a raid on landings in progress in New Guinea. Heavily outnumbered in ships, the Americans have one tremendous advantage: Their newly-won ability to read JN25b, the principal Japanese naval code. The Coral Sea east of Australia becomes the pivotal battleground of the Pacific War. Jack Sewell, the destroyer officer from HBTS, is in the middle of the action.

Again, I am dealing with an international cast of characters. Besides Jack, Dutch officers Jan Dijker and Garrit Laterveer, are again in play. Nurse Christine van Zweden, Garrit’s fiancé, finds herself facing an impossible choice dictated by HBTS’s arch villain, Japanese Colonel Katsura Okuma. And across the globe in Germany, the Gestapo lusts to get its hands on Dijker, formerly the British Special Operations Executive’s key spy in Occupied Holland.

Jack Sewell’s new love interest is an American Navy nurse. Her adventures include being a surgical nurse in the jungle hospitals on Bataan, escaping to Corregidor just before Bataan surrenders, and then boarding a submarine to Australia on the night before Corregidor capitulates.

I’m about a third of the way through writing ENDURE THE CRUEL SUN. I hope to publish it sometime next fall.  Look for promotional posts near the end of summer.

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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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Another Voice of Anguish Stilled

Last Sunday, Hwang Keum-ja, one of the few remaining Korean sex slaves of the Imperial Japanese Army (“comfort women”) passed away in a hospital in Seoul, South Korea. She died of lung and respiratory disease at the age of 89.

Forced into prostitution at the age of 16, Hwang was forced to serve in “comfort stations’ throughout World War II in several conquered countries. The life of these women can only be described as a living hell. On duty seven days a week, they were forced to have sex with as many IJA soldiers as showed up at the brothel. Hwang later said that she was unable to even stand up at the end of most weekends. She endured these torturous circumstances for several years before being abandoned in China at war’s end.

Making her way back to Korea, Hwang survived by collecting and selling garbage from the streets. Late in her life, she suffered hallucinations about being attacked in her home. She lived a life of great poverty, but this did not keep her from becoming one of the most outspoken advocates for the former sex slaves. Right up to the time of her death, Hwang regularly took part in demonstrations outside the Japanese embassy in Seoul demanding a formal apology from Japan and direct reparations to the individual women. There was precedent for their demands.

Early in the Pacific War, the U.S. government unconstitutionally imprisoned over 100,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry in internment camps. These citizens lost everything they had and had to endure concentration camp conditions for the remainder of the war. Nevertheless, thousands of the young men volunteered to serve in the U.S. armed forces. The army formed them into a segregated regimental combat team, the 442nd was the most decorated unit in the entire U.S. Army.

Later U.S. administrations recognized the horrible injustice visited on these Japanese-Americans. Congress passed a resolution of apology and appropriated funds to compensate the internees in part for their suffering. Today’s Americans are appalled that such a thing could have happened in our country. Over 200,000 Korean women were enslaved as IJA “comfort women.” Only 55 of these women are left alive. Hwang Keum-ja and her sisters are asking nothing more than what the U.S. provided to its internees.

My World War II novel, Hold Back the Sun, touches on the IJA sex slave system. A villainous Japanese officer plots to enslave the Dutch heroine as a “comfort woman” for causing him to lose face. He could not conceive of a more terrible fate. Neither could I as the author.

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.

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.

Getting Technical Facts Right in Fiction Writing

While enjoying a fairly new mystery thriller set more or less in the present, I read about military guards being armed with M1 carbines. This was something of a jolt for me, because I know that the early Vietnam years were the latest that U.S. armed forces regularly used this weapon. In many other novels, some by highly popular authors, I often discover similar anachronisms, such as placing in WW2 fiction weapons not then developed. I’ve seen some authors use the words revolver to describe all pistols. I have found many other questionable technical details in popular fiction. For some reason, this really bothers me, especially because the right information is so readily available today on the Internet.

I believe an author has a responsibility to make his fiction as plausible as possible. Getting the details right is essential to complete plausibility. For knowledgeable readers, and there are hoards of them out there, hitting an obviously wrong detail interrupts the flow of the prose and may cause irritation. This isn’t a good reaction for the author.

Before penning both of my novels, a spent many hours in exhaustive research. When I first began writing, this required lots of time in libraries. I treat research as a puzzle, digging for the answer I want until I discover it. Only when I’m convinced that I’m on firm ground do I plunge ahead with the writing.

The dogfights in my new novel, Hold Back the Sun provide an example. My Dutch protagonist, Captain Garret Laterveer, is flying an obsolescent Brewster Buffalo against modern Japanese Army (IJA) and Navy (IJN) fighters. I read everything I could find both in print and on the Internet about the actual experience of Dutch pilots early in the Pacific War. Surprisingly, some of them had success, especially against the Army Nakajima fighters in Malaya. The IJN Zeros were another matter. At the time, this aircraft was probably the best fighter in the world. Yet some Dutch pilots did shoot them down. In my research, I found that the Brewster aircraft had a number of the same strengths and weaknesses of the P-40 fighters used successfully against Zeros by the Flying Tigers. Applying artistic license, I allowed the Dutch to use Flying Tiger tactics.

I know the old saw, “Never let the facts get in the way of a good story,” and I have used it myself to alter history to make the plot go the way I want it. However, I do not believe this justifies incomplete research. Our readers deserve our best efforts.

Birth of a Novel

Yesterday, we successfully launched the paperback version of my new novel, Hold Back the Sun. This was my first experience of a formal launch event, but I really enjoyed it. After reading several passages that introduced the main characters and set the tone for the story, I invited the guests to ask questions. Several people asked, “How long does it take to write a novel?”

The answer to this question varies with individual books. Like mammals, different novels have different gestation periods, varying by size. Gerbils take about 25 days from conception to birth; cats require about 64; Horses, 340; African elephants, 645. In similar fashion, the bigger the book, the longer it takes to complete it.

My first published novel, Fall Eagle One required about three years from conception to final draft. The nature of my writing requires somewhat exhaustive historical research. Having the Internet available was a Godsend to my research. Actual writing took a little over a year, while editing and rewriting under the guidance of a skilled editor required several more months before we were ready to shop the manuscript. 

Hold Back the Sun took a little longer. My interest in the exploits of the U.S. Asiatic Fleet early in WWII was sparked in the mid 1960s by reading John Toland’s popular history, But Not in Shame. In the late 1970s, I read The Lonely Ships, Edwin P. Hoyt’s history of the Asiatic Fleet. The germ of an idea for a novel started tickling my mind. I was on active duty in the Navy, so my time for exploring the subject was limited. Nevertheless, I began doing literary research and taking notes on the places I visited in Hawaii and Asia. I began serious writing about 1980 during off duty hours while serving a tour without my family. The result of this effort was a manuscript that was far too long to expect to be published as a debut novel. New writing ideas drew my attention, so Hold Back the Sun languished in my computer for several years. However, I was very attached to the story and always meant to publish it when the opportunity arose.

Once Fall Eagle One achieved some success, I decided to buckle down and rewrite Hold Back the Sun. Using skills learned from my editor, I pared the manuscript and completely rewrote the last third of the story. It took me about seven months of hard work to get to the point of publication. The success of the Kindle e-book (currently #6 in historical fiction-Asian) suggests that it was worth the effort.

Being in my late seventies, I no longer have the luxury of a taking a lot of time for my future works. Fortunately, I can now do most of my research by computer without leaving my desk. I plan to publish one new book every year for as long as I’m physically able.  I hope that my readers will continue to enjoy them.

Note: Both of Warren’s novels are Amazon Kindle Bestsellers Hold Back the Sun is #6 on historical fiction: Asian and #56 in action-adventure: war and military. Fall Eagle One is #56 on action-adventure/war and military.

The Movies Expanded Our Horizons

Rialto Theater, Eldorado Arkansas.
Photo courtesy of Cinema Treasures.

Life in Southwest Arkansas during the 1940s and early 1950s was much more like that of the Nineteenth Century than what we are experiencing today. The majority of the population still lived in the country, even those whose fathers worked in the booming oil industry. Many farmers still plowed behind mules. The roads held a variety of old vehicles, many Ford Model A's and even a few Model T's. Electricity, natural gas, and indoor plumbing were luxuries reserved for those who lived within the limits of cities. Electronic entertainment was usually limited to a single radio powered by a rechargeable battery. I sometimes feel that my grandchildren find my tales of these “days of yore” hard to believe.

Life, however, followed simple rhythms that were centuries old. Daily life centered around hard daily work--but weekends brought a reprieve. Whole families packed into family cars for the weekly shopping trip to the small cities. Even on these outings, a regular routine prevailed. Parents not wanting to corral whiny children had a ready source of childcare—the local movie theater. Saturday offerings included double features, usually “shoot-em-up” westerns, separated by newsreels and serials like “The Perils of Pauline." The films ran continuously. Parents could just drop off their kids with a couple of dimes for admission and candy and leave them there indefinitely. When shopping was finished, the theaters let people go in free to retrieve their offspring. A stop at the local hamburger joint for supper capped the day.

Gradually, long exposure to motion pictures began to change our perception of the world around us. Not all of the movies were westerns. Pictures like Dragon Seed, Pearl S. Buck’s story of harsh Chinese life under Japan’s domination, opened our eyes to other cultures. Tarzan shows and movies like "King Solomon’s Mines" introduced us to Africa. Despite heavy propaganda, newsreels and war movies made us aware of the vast scope of military operations throughout the world. After the war, cinemas shot at exotic locations throughout the world further broadened our horizons. My initial interest in engineering was sparked by a John Wayne movie called "Tycoon," about construction of a railroad in South America.

During my adolescent years, I must have seen nearly every movie that screened in our hometown. For years, I carried an afternoon paper route. The best way to escape the heat of scorching South Arkansas summers was in an air-conditioned movie theater. Frequently viewing images of the world at large fueled a desire to experience a life outside the limits of small town America. By working hard and getting a college education, I was able to live that dream--two degrees in Civil Engineering opened the door, and a long career as an officer in the U.S. Navy took me to many parts of the world, fulfilling childhood dreams.

One of the pictures I saw late in World War II was "The Story of Dr. Wassell," a somewhat fictionalized Cecil B.DeMille epic about a U.S. Navy doctor’s heroism in saving a number of badly wounded sailors from capture by the Japanese. Gary Cooper played the hero. It never occurred to me at the time that, decades later, I would relate the true facts surrounding Dr. Wassell in one of my novels. When I decided to write a novel about the early months of the war in the western Pacific, I was not even thinking about the doctor’s story. I concentrated for months on the savage battles between the vastly outnumbered American and Dutch navies against the modern Imperial Japanese Navy. When I began plotting the final chapters, however, it became apparent that no book about the Dutch East Indies campaign would be complete without including the story of these survivors of U.S.S. Marblehead and U.S.S. Houston. I employed artistic license to place my fictional characters in the midst of this heroic tale. The result is my second novel, recently released for Kindle, Hold Back the Sun.

Just as I could never have anticipated how the technology of the movies would impact my own life so directly, I often wonder, with awe and curiosity, how lives so seemingly-saturated by technology and media today will affect the adult lives of my grandchildren.

Note: Warren Bell's newest novel, Hold Back the Sun, has been released for Kindle in advance of the printed book launch. This new historical-fiction thriller, set in the Pacific, follows the US Asiatic Fleet in their battle with the Japanese.  Warren Bell's debut novel, Fall Eagle One, detailing a fictitious but plausible assassination attempt on FDR during World War II, is available for Kindle or in paperback on Amazon.com.

Researching My New Novel Hold Back the Sun

My second novel, newly released for Kindle, Hold Back the Sun is set during the opening months to the Pacific War around the Philippine Islands and the Dutch East Indies. I first became interested in this period of the war when I read John Toland’s 1960s popular history of the campaign, But Not in Shame. Not much else became available on the subject for a number of years.

When I decided to write a novel about the early months of the war, the resources for researching the Japanese conquest of Southeast Asia were mostly limited to old books published during the war or immediately thereafter. After framing the basic story in an outline, pressures of my job required that I put it aside for several years. In the interim, a marvelous tool, the Internet, became available. From a scarcity of sources about my project, I suddenly faced a flood of information.

Almost everything I wanted to know was suddenly at my fingertips. An excellent website on The Netherlands East Indies Campaign provided intimate detail about all the units and battles from both the viewpoints of both the Allies and the Japanese. Wikipedia has articles on every subject imaginable. Google Maps allows one to zoom in on any area in the world in both map and satellite formats. Simply Googling the names of historical characters brought up biographies and photos from several sources.  Historical photos of cities throughout the planet can be found with little effort, a boon when describing settings. Old newspaper articles from the period are readily available. A simple email to an Australian city prompted a reply with the address of the 1942 U.S. Navy headquarters there.

Perhaps the most help provided by the Internet was in tracing the saga of Lieutenant Commander Corydon Wassell, USNR Medical Corps. Dr. Wassell became a legend during the war for his heroic efforts in saving a number of wounded U.S. Navy sailors in Java. Wartime propaganda shrouded the actual facts of his heroism. Cecil B. DeMille’s 1944 movie, The Story of Dr. Wassell, did not let the truth get in the way of telling a compelling adventure. Many Internet sources cleared up these discrepancies. Wartime newspaper stories recorded Dr. Wassell’s own account of events as well as reporting the return of his sailors to their hometowns after the conflict. The websites, U.S.S.Marblehead & Dr. Wassell and its link to The Marby website are rich in detail on the Asiatic Fleet in the Southwest Pacific Campaign.

Not all information I needed was available online. William J. Dunn’s 1988 memoir, Pacific Microphone, proved especially helpful, as did Walter D. Edmond’s Air Corps history, They Fought With What They Had (out of print.)

The Internet remains a priceless tool for researching novels, but old fashioned digging in published books is also essential.

Check my Author’s website at https://sites.google.com/site/warrenbellauthor/ for details about the release of Hold Back the Sun.