No Merciful War is Long Listed at Chanticleer!

Chanticleer Book Reviews placed my series, No Merciful War, on its long list for Best Genre Fiction Series.

Needless to say, this is a major honor, but it’s still only a first step! Going forward, there’s stiff competition. I’m one of forty-six authors on the list, and some of those writers look like they might be almost as good as I am. Well, that sounds maybe a little arrogant, but come on, I write about fighter pilots, you think writers are that different when it comes to belief in what they do?

Anyway, you can see for yourself at the Chanticleer website. Here’s the link:

Series Award 2023 Long List for Genre Fiction

For those of you who haven’t read my books, the No Merciful War series is historical fiction set during World War II. The series characters are pilots and aircrew in the US Army Air Forces — which no one at the time ever referred to as anything but the “Air Corps.” The first book in the series, Everything We Had: a Novel of the Pacific Air War November – December 1941, is set in the Philippines during the lead-up to America’s entry into World War Two. Subsequent books pit my characters against the forces of Imperial Japan through the long retreat from the Philippines until the US stands together with Australia on the island of New Guinea.

The characters who survive will face further action in Europe. That’s where things stand now, after publication of the eighth book in the series: Dancing with Angels: a Novel of the SW Pacific Air War March-May 1943.

The ninth book is in preparation. The full title will be Nos Credimus: a Novel of the Air War May – July 1943. “Nos credimus” is Latin for “we believe,” and the nuances of the title go beyond that being adopted as the motto of the fictional 427th Fighter Group. I’m working on a first draft, so there are a lot of problems still to solve. My intention is to solve them as quickly as possible, but there’s no way of saying, at this point, how quickly that might be.

Briefly, though, the story line follows Jack Davis and the members of the 427th Fighter Group as they prepare to deploy for combat, and Charlie Davis, commanding the 945th Bomb Group in the 8th Air Force. Both outfits have their problems, and those problems will test the ability of all the characters to believe in themselves, their abilities, and their mission.

Future books are in contemplation, taking surviving characters through the end of the war. Following Nos Crediums, look for the tenth book, Schweinfurt: a Novel of the European Air War August – October 1943.

So you see I have plenty of work ahead of me. I’d better get back to it.

Hope everyone reading this has a healthy and happy holiday!

A Friend Is Gone

When I got back from a long sojourn out of town I found out that a friend, Col. John Parker, USAF-Ret., had died.

A few years back John told me he wanted to live to be at least 102, because then he and his two brothers would all be over 100 years old. John was, I think, 97 years old, and if you live through 33 missions over Germany and a lively career in the USAF which included service in Vietnam, living into your late 90s ain’t bad.

In the time I was privileged to spend with John I learned to always carry a voice recorder. John would tell stories that started from the here-and-now but then, with no more transition than a sentence or two, would take you into his seat at the navigator’s table of his B-17, guiding the bomber to a target in Germany with flak exploding all around. Sometimes it could take your breath away and make your hair stand on end, to be sitting with this little, quiet guy, telling you in his soft, matter-of-fact voice about seeing the lead bomber take a hit from flak and start burning. And that would happen right beside you, and the seventy years distance in time fell away.

I hope I captured a little of that, because now that direct line to the past is gone. That’s part of my mourning for John’s passing.

Because it can be quite an education, being around someone like John Parker. Little bits and pieces of the past, of how it was, would simply be there for anyone with the eyes to see and ears to listen. And there’s something about those guys who served in World War Two that was hard to put your finger on, for all it was there.

Maybe because that time was still with them, still part of their lives, who they were.

Like the time I thought I’d have to keep John out of a fist-fight with another old codger. See, once upon a time we had a lot of WW2 guys at the Hickory Aviation Museum, and one of them was named Bob Morgan. (Bob would be quick to tell you he wasn’t THAT Bob Morgan. You know, the “Memphis Belle” guy.) Bob was special in his own right. He logged 37,000-odd hours flying cargo and charter after being in Air Transport Command (ATC) during the war, flying, among other things, the Curtiss C-46 over the Hump to China. That wasn’t safe duty. Losses to weather and terrain on the Hump run were pretty much the same as in flying combat.

So when Bob Morgan met John Parker the first time they shook hands and had a conversation that, to the best of my recollection, went something like this:

BOB: Well, John, you look like you were old enough to be there. What did you do?

JOHN: Me? Navigator. Eighth Air Force. You?

BOB: ATC.

JOHN (innocently): ATC? Oh, Allergic To Combat?

And Bob’s face got red and his teeth gritted, and after 60+ years that wartime gibe stung to the point where I thought Bob would take a poke at John, and I found myself repressing laughter and getting ready to step between them if I had to.

Here’s the thing: John wasn’t a big guy, maybe five-five, with big ears and a resemblance to the cartoon character Sad Sack. Bob wasn’t all that big, but he was a good bit bigger than John.

And not that Bob wasn’t a tough old bird.

It’s just that I know who I would’ve bet on to finish that fight.

Bet on, without thinking about it.

But John is gone, and the world diminished by his passing.

I miss him.