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.  

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.  

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.

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.