S. Martin Shelton – Page 7 – Retired U.S.Navy Captain, Novelist

Malaysia Flight 370

The saga continues re Malaysia Flight 370 that disappeared a year ago this past weekend. Notwithstanding the labor and equipment employed, not a scintilla of a clue of this aircraft or its 239 passengers and crew has been found. The search extended to the Asia mainland and in the Indian Ocean off the west coast of Australia. The investigation continues. Currently, three Dutch oceanographic ships are exploring the seas. Unfortunately, several large cyclones and particularly nasty weather has seriously hampered the search.

What happened to Malaysia Flight 370? Officially, no one knows. Some of the relatives of those missing and others are convinced that the entire search effort is a ruse to divert attention from what really happened to the flight. Others have formed a committee that offers a “substantial reward” for truthful information.

Indeed Watson, the plot thickens.

BOOK REVIEW: The Boxer Rebellion and the Great Game in China by David J. Silbey

box rebellion This treatise on the Boxer Rebellion of 1900 in Shantung Province in northern China and in Peking is exceptionally well researched and told. Silbey has written this book with keen understanding and the perceptive knack to engulf the audience deeply into his chronicle. Of what I know of the Boxer Rebellion, I would suggest that this book is the most comprehensive and accurate of all other popular histories. Of note, he engages us in the big pictures and leads us skillfully into minute details of individual exploits and heroism.

I fault Silbey for not providing custom-designed, detailed maps of the various campaigns and a large-scale map of northern China with key geographic features and city names. This is a serious failure and negates a five-star rating. He does suffer us with six maps from that period that are minuscule and worthless—including one of the innards of Peking. The overall map of northern China that he does provide is small and inefficacious. Accordingly, it is extremely difficult to follow the coalition’s campaign up the Dagu River to relieve the besieged legations in Peking. Included in the coalition army were elements of the armed forces from America, Great Britain, Imperial Germany, France, Austria-Hungry Empire, Imperial Russia, and Japanese Empire.

He opens his book with an overview of western imperialism in China over the past fifty years. He details the negative effects this imperialism engendered on and the general populace’s emotions and on the Imperial government; led by the Dowager Empress Tzu-his (“Cixi” in the current Pinyin spelling) and Prince Duan of the fading Qing Dynasty. Compounding the contempts was the Chinese adversarial perception of the special privileges endowed on Chinese Christians by missionaries and the western powers.

The drought in the spring of 1900 in Shantung Province crippled the breadbasket of northern China. The idle and starving farmers and peasants convinced themselves that the imperial westerners caused the drought to further humiliate and dominate them. Without leadership, the Boxer movement evolved and morphed quickly into a ragtag fighting force throughout the province. Some few of the Boxers were students of the ancient Chinese martial arts collectively dubbed “ch’uan fa.” They slaughtered Christian converts, missionaries and their families, and even important westerners; for example, the Baron August F. von Ketteler, the German minister to the Imperial Throne.

The Boxers moved into Peking and laid siege to the foreign legations—ensconced behind the Tartar wall. The Empress Dowager Cixi made the fateful decision to declare war on “the invaders,” and ordered the imperial army to repel the aggressors. The collation forces fought spirited campaigns at the Chinese’s key forts and strong points along the Dagu River in their difficult campaign to relieve the besieged legations in Peking.

The Chinese, army supported by the irregular Boxers, mounted a spirited defense causing serious causalities among the collation forces. Unfortunately, they could not fight as a unified command because of international rivalries (Japan and Russia, for example), petty jalousies, and failure to develop of a comprehensive operations plan. Of note, credit goes to the Japanese whose bravery and innovative tactics forced the fall of the key city of Tientsin (Tianjin) and they led the way to the capitol.

Nonetheless, after fifty-five days collation forces reached Peking and relieved the legation. The peace treaty, the Boxer Protocol, was harsh and unforgiving to the Chinese—imposing a ₤67 million-indemnity and territorial concessions.

Buy the The Boxer Rebellion and the Great Game in China on Amazon.

Works by S. Martin Shelton

BOOK REVIEW: A Box of Sand: The Italo-Ottoman War 1911-1912 by Charles Stephenson

I’m conflicted reviewing this book. Stephenson reports the chronologic events of this war in exceptional detail. Unfortunately, it’s dull, and tedious—lacks an empathetic milieu. It’s hard reading for the ordinary citizen. Perhaps it is best as a reference book for the military historian.

This war between the Kingdom of Italy and the Ottoman Empire early in the twentieth-century (1911-1912) for control of Cyrenaica and Tripolitania (now Libya) mostly is lost to history nor is its raison d’être much understood. Stephenson has superbly researched the war’s particulars and has penned about as historically accurate a scenario as one could reckon. He relates in excruciating detail the chronology of the war—laced with interminable quotes from journalists, diary entries, diplomatic and military messages, after-action reports, etc. He spends considerable text discussing the reactions of the Triple Entente to Italy’s (a member) participation in the war, Ottoman politics, and details and implications of the Balkan Wars. Such background is related to the conflict but is tangential and diverts our attention from the main theme.

I’m overwhelmed with ancillary information. The war’s key points are buried in this comprehensive blather. On completion of his text, I do not have a clear picture of the events of this war nor of its origins.

I have three more complaints: the text of this 296-page book is in a small font (size and type not given on the copyright page)—far too small for comfortable reading. And, the Appendices are in an even smaller font. Often times, he mentions locations in the text that are not plotted on his maps. The Index contains only the names of people mentioned in the text. A more comprehensive Index would contain geographic locations, ship’s names, and etc.

Lastly, though the war ended officially in 1912 it morphed into a protracted war with the indigenous Senussi that lasted until 1934. The Senussi are a Muslim political-religious Sufi order and tribe of (now) Libya and Sudan.

Malaysia Flight 370, # 14

On Friday, 30 January 2015, the Malaysian government formally declared Malaysia Flight 370 an accident and all 239 souls on board are presumed deceased. Flight 370 last reported a position late on the evening of 8 March 2014 (now 327 days missing). Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said “ At this juncture, there is no evidence to substantiate speculation as to the cause of the accident” (my emphasis). Notwithstanding, extensive oceanographic search in the Indian Ocean by the navies of several nations, no trace of this missing airplane has been found—no debris, no corpses, no “black boxes.” Nothing!

Shortly after Flight 270 vanished, I developed a plausible scenario re this missing flight and sent it to a secure location. If within this year (2015) the airplane is not found, I will open this file and send it to my blog. Hint: to the Sherlock Holmes aficionados, I would suggest that, “The hound did not bark.”

SHORT STORY: Professor O. B. Fuscate

Professor O. B. Fuscate ©
By S. Martin Shelton

Professor Fuscate’s strides are long and quick. He’s late for his lecture “Deconstructing Dashiell Hammett’s novel The Maltese Falcon.” To save a few steps, he cuts through the parking lot. His mind is focused sharply on telling his students what Hammett meant in the scene where Caspar Gutman says to Sam Spade, “Yes sir, we were. But we were talking then. This is actual money, genuine coin of the realm, sir. With a dollar of this you can buy more that ten dollars of talk.” A bright symbol catches the corner of his eye. He stops and spots the personalized license plate “16 CINE” on a current model Volvo sedan.

His mind tries to decode the significance of this symbol. No doubt, it’s an icon that reveals the automobile’s owner’s psyche: his needs to proclaim to the world through this coded message that it is he. But, who is he? And what is the owner’s message? The conundrum piques the professor’s professional pride to the degree that he must solve this riddle. Puzzled deeply, he eschews his class and resolves to deconstruct this arcane symbol.

Professor Fuscate applies his keen deductive ability to devise the owner’s meaning. He immediately rationalizes that the owner of this new Volvo is astute, wealthy, socially liberal, well educated, and environmental aware. Why does the owner need to proclaim this arcane two-symbol message to the world? A boost to his ego? A protection notice? A proclamation of import? Or perhaps just a will-o’-the-wisp—but he thinks not. There is a serious message here.

First, he tackles the symbol “16.” He notes that this number has no dimension: inch, volt, light-year, or furlong for examples. Nonetheless, based on the evidence and using his patented deconstruction techniques, he concluded that “16” is either a count of something or an icon that represents something known only to the owner and his cadre of cognoscenti.

He’s perplexed with “CINE.” He first thought is that it is an anagram in some foreign language. On reflection, he discards this idea and deconstructs this symbol as code for “SIN” and the “E” stands for “Extraordinary.” With this part of the sign solved, he concludes that the owner is proclaiming his confession for sixteen major sins—all left unsaid.

Standing behind Professor Fuscate is a scruffy young fellow smoking a joint. He’s wears torn jeans, wrinkled shirt, and running shoes that should have been discarded last year. He has long, shaggy hair, an unkempt beard, and emits the putrid odor of a long, unwashed body. Surprised that the professor is examining his license plate, he exhales a cloud of voluminous and odiferous smoke toward the professor. He asks, “Hey man, ‘wacha doin’ with my automobile?”

The professor coughs a couple of times and addresses the intruder, “I have deconstructed your license plate’s symbol. He waves away some of the lingering smoke. “Pray tell young man, what are your sixteen-sins that you’ve proclaimed so loudly in code on you Volvo?”

Befuddled by this untoward remark, the fellow proclaims. “Ain’t got no sins. And if I did, I sure aint gonna tell you or nobody else.”

“But you license plate sends the message of your sins loud and clear. Do not be ashamed. What are your discretions, if I may be so bold?”

“Professor, you ain’t bold. You got a mixed up mind.” He tossed his joint on the ground and exhales a volume of gray smoke that engulfs the professor. “I’m a cinema student and my personalized plate tells the world that I’m studying 16mm filmmaking.

“Quite so. Quite so. Just as I had deconstructed.”

If you enjoyed my short story please read Aviators, Adventurers, and Assassins, a conglomeration of 20th Century novellas, short stories, and flash fiction quips, assembled in no particular order, are heroes, blackguards, lovers, gallants, adulterers, wayfarers, fanatics, mercenaries, sportsmen, pioneers, and murderers—just the regular assemblage of ordinary folks doing extraordinary things. Some of the characters are real (usually disguised in a nom de plume), some are fiction, some of the stories are based on real incidents, and some are figments of my imagination. Nonetheless, take none seriously—even though your empathy may be intense.

BOOK REVIEW: Bohemians, Bootleggers, Flappers, and Swells by Graydon Carter, editor

The title of this book promises more than it delivers. It’s a completion of seventy-two articles that were published in the magazine Vanity Fair in the 1910s, ‘20s, and ‘30s. On the whole, the articles are thoughtful, perceptive, and sometimes clever. I expected a frivolous, funny, and carefree expose of the Roaring-Twenties: jazz, bootleggers, flappers, swells, and bathtub gin. Those items are included but mostly veiled in a serious vein.

A few entries offer comic relief—those of Robert Benchley and P. G. Wodehouse, for examples. Conversely, the essays on the economics of the Great Depression in the 1930s are tedious. Blame the banks, not the greed of the proletariat who gamble on the stock market on twenty-percent margins.

There are whimsical Dorothy Parker poems, “Brevity is the soul of lingerie’, said this little chemise to itself.”

Edna S. Vincent Millay pens:
“After all’s said and after all’s done
What should I be but a harlot and a nun?”

The great literati of the Algonquin Round Table are admirably represented by Robert Benchley, Dorothy Parker, Robert E. Sherwood, Heywood Broun, and Alexander Woollcott,

Robert Sherwood’s 1920 article, “The Higher Education on the Screen” is on target in 2014.

Sophisticated humor is best represented by Geoffrey Kerr’s 1926 piece titled “A Western Reunion.” I’ll not divulge its secret style or content. It’s too much fun for me to spoil it.

Theodore Dreiser 1928 paean to Vladimir Lenin and Communism titled “Russia: The Great Experiment” is fraught with pro-Socialist agitprop. Here’s one egregious example, “Incidentally, the death sentence for all crimes with the exception of crimes against the State, military crimes and armed banditry was abolished…” Reckon he forgot about the twenty-million Russian his secret police (Cheka) murdered for “crimes against the State.” Here’s one more. (The political leaders are) “more earnest, more thoughtful, and since, more capable of thinking—and that is the highest compliment I can pay them.”

Thomas Mann’s 1929 article “The Extremely Moving Picture” espouses, “Films are not art, they are life and actuality.” And, “Art is significant, aristocratic, chaste, and sensitive… How different is the screen!”

Following are tidbits that I circled for their cogency.

“A few fiddles, a saxophone, a banjo, a drum and endless instruments for the making of sheer noise.” (regarding jazz.)
“(Those who smiled) were immediately arrested, lynched, and jailed, on the charge of habeas corpus with premeditated absence.” (E. E. Cummings in “When Calvin Coolidge Laughed.”)
“…all that is fashionable is modern.” (Aldous Huxley says in “What, Exactly, is Modern?”)
“The State should never be permitted to say what he shall eat and drink, what he shall think, what he shall say to his fellows.” (Sherwood Anderson in “Hello, Big Boy.”)

This book is sophisticated, erudite, and encompassing—an excellent read for the literary cognoscente.

S. Martin Shelton’s Upcoming Novel

During the chaos that was China in 1935, Randall Kendrick, a wealthy American collector of fine oriental art, and his savvy daughter, Ingrid, embark on an adventurous quest to purchase a cache of extremely rare Ming yellow porcelains. General Wu Pei-fu, the vicious warlord of Kansu Province, offers the porcelains for sale to the highest bidder. Traveling with Kendrick is the expatriate Australian photojournalist, Matt Drummond who focuses his eyes through his camera’s viewfinder and on Ingrid. Leading the Kendrick party is Wallace Chung, a suave young hustler who claims to have some connection with the warlord and first-hand knowledge about the porcelains. The Kendrick party travels in a private railroad coach bound for Kansu Province in western China. Soon they are caught in the maw of China’s interior strife: dueling warlords, bandit gangs, marauding militias, Communist cadres, and elements of Japan’s Kwangtung Army.

Ming Yellow is scheduled to release Summer 2015. In the meantime, read a few of my other works on Amazon.

BOOK REVIEW: The Last Days of the Romanovs: Tragedy at Ekaterinburg by Helen Rappaport

This powerful account of the Romanovs’ internment and regicide at “The House of Special Purpose” at Ekaterinburg, July 1918, is compelling, evocative, and horrifying. I suspect that Rappaport’s book on this ghoulish event is the most meticulously researched and accurate account of the Bolshevik’s liquidation of Czar Nicholas II, Empress Alexandra, and their five children.

She weaves the historical events in a storybook style that imbues life into the Royal Family. We look askance at the Czar who lacks moral courage, is fearful of innovation and change, and refuses to see the social and political problems engulfing Russia. We wonder at Empress Alexandra’s idiosyncratic brand of Victorian prudery, her impulsive sensuality and her hysterical passion, and her onerous addiction to narcotics: morphine and cocaine. We empathize with soft tears at the naive innocence of their daughters: Maria, Olga, Tatiana, and Anastasia. We sympathize with the hemophiliac, Tsarevich Alexy.

We abhor the Bolsheviks’ regicide of the Royal Family as they perished in a fusillade of bullets, bayonets, and blood. We are appalled that the family’s servants also were included in this senseless butchery: their physician, Doctor Eugene Botkin; valet. Alexey Trupp; cook, Ivan Kharitanov; and maid Anya Demidova.

Lastly, we recoil at the senseless killing of Tatiana’s Pekinese dog “Jimmy”.

We damn Vladimir Lenin who ordered the regicide, Commissar Yakov Yurovsky, the leader of the assassination squad, and the Cheka guards who took unbridled, and unnatural pleasure in their perverse passion.

I wonder if Rappaport had to detail the gruesome details of the regicide and the Cheka’s inept attempts to destroy the corpses.

The Last Days of the Romanovs is a must read for the aficionados of the Russian Revolution. For the faint of heart, I would suggest an alternate book.

You may also read St. Catherine’s Crown, historical fiction based on the regicide that begs the question, what if Anastasia survived?

BOOK REVIEW: Killing Patton by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard

Killing Patton is a compelling tale of World War II’s greatest general: George S. Patton (1885 to 1945). The manuscript reads easily—almost as an adventure novel. We are propelled into the story as a participant as our intense empathy builds. Importantly, one does not have to have a keen knowledge of the War to follow Patton’s exploits. The authors lead us with guiding words that sets the perspective and the scene. I would suggest that Killing Patton is the superior of the other three “Killing” books they’ve written. It’s a must read.

Patton was not a man of subtlety or tact: he was narcissistic, proud, boisterous, forthright, aggressive, disrespectful, stubborn, insubordinate, and the most successful American general of the war. His highly successful campaigns in North Africa, Sicily, and Western Europe are text-book examples of his motto, “Attack. Attack. Attack. And attack again.” A captured German officer told his American captors that, “General Patton is the most feared general on all fronts. The tactics of General Patton are daring and unpredictable.”

It was during the Battle of the Bulge (16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945) that exemplified the best, and perhaps the most, important example of Patton’s aggressive tactics. In late-December, he thrust his Third Army from southern France to Belgium to relieve the Battling Bastards of Bastogne—the men of the 101^stAirborne Division and other elements that were fighting heroically to fend the German Wehrmact and SS Division that have this crucial town surrounded. It was freezing cold, snowing, and sometimes raining. Accordingly, there was no American air support. The inclement weather had slowed down Patton’s advance. He prayed to God and chided him, “I am beginning to wonder what’s going on in Your head. Whose side are You on anyway.”

Meantime at Bastogne: the American forces suffer many casualties, ammunition was low, and hope for relief was fading. German General. Lt. Gen.Heinrich Freiherr von Lüttwit sent a note to General Anthony McAulife demanding that he surrender. McAuliffe’s reply, “NUTS!” The weather cleared, and on 26 December, elements of the Third Army relieved Bastogne.

During the Battle of the Bulge, a German SS Division captured several hundred Americans near the town of Malmedy. The SS soldiers machine-gunned the Americas—only two soldiers escaped this massacre.

Patton speaks his mind and the aftermath be dammed. He offends his superiors: General Dwight Eisenhower, General Omar Bradley, President Harry Truman, and the British. He believes that Eisenhower is a fool, Bradly is ineffectual, and President Truman is gullible. Patton says, “Truman just doesn’t like me.” And Truman says, “Patton is a braggart who struts around like a peacock in his showy uniform, with polished helmet and bloused riding pants.” General Eisenhower tells President Truman that, “Patton is a mentally unbalanced officer, and suffers from bouts of dementia.” General Marshall orders that Patton’s telephones be tapped. The head of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), William (Wild Bill) Donovan answered “Yes” to the question from a subordinate’s question, “Shall I kill him?” All the while, the Soviets are spying on Patton.

Patton has an abiding distrust of the Communists and the duplicitous Joseph Stalin and says so loudly and to anyone nearby. He states that after Germany surrenders, we should continue our war to defeat the Soviets. He makes deadly enemies on both sides of the conflict.

He escapes two attempts on his life. On 18 April 1945, while flying in an L-5 Sentinel aircraft, a Supermarine Spitfire (a British fighter) with Polish markings made two aggressive attacks. The L-5 pilot took desperate evasive tactics and pushes his aircraft close to the ground. The spitfire plows into the ground. Records indicate that no Polish spitfires were in the area on 18 April. The Soviet army does have several squadrons of Spitfires.

On 3 May, Patton is riding in an open air jeep. A German peasant’s ox cart with a sharpened pole extending in front of the cart slams into the jeep. The pole misses Patton by inches.

On 8 December, Patton is in the back seat of a sedan en route to a hunting trip. A large army truck smashes into the sedan head on. Patton suffers serious head injuries. He is taken to a hospital in Heidelberg. On 21 December Patton dies.

I do have some negatives. The authors spend too many words on numerous back stories that are only marginally relevant. For example, long discourses about Adolph Hitler and his activities inside his bunker: ditto re President Roosevelt, Joseph Stalin and the USSR, the Great Depression, Winston Churchill and the Parliament, William Donovan, excruciating details re the Auschwits-Birkenau Extermination Complex, Anne Frank and the Nuremburg trials of Nazi war criminals.

My greatest disappointment is that the authors skipped details of the German surrender. They should have described this monumental event in detail—the defeat of Germany was the central theme of their book—the raison d’être for this story of Patton. Perhaps they could have deleted some of the back-story text to make room for this scene.

Here are the highlights of the German surrender. On 7 May 1945, the Chief of Staff of the German Armed Forces High Command, General Alfred Jodel, on orders from Admiral Karl Donitz signs the unconditional surrender document. General Dwight Eisenhower signs for the United States of America. All German military activities cease on 8 May, (Victory in Europe Day, VE-Day).

Malaysia Flight 370: Will they find it?

A couple days ago, Martin Dolan, chief commissioner of The Australian Transport Safety Bureau, announced that they have resumed the search for Malaysia Flight 370. Recall that this flight disappeared on 8 March last. Speculation posits that the Boeing model 777-200 ER crashed into the Indian Ocean some 1,200 miles west of Australia. A cadre of nations formed to search team for the missing aircraft using all manner of technical equipment. After six-weeks of searching, researches found no trace of the flight. All clues were apocryphal. Authorities called-off the search to regroup.

Since, two oceanographic ships have mapped 23,000 square miles of a remote area, that is located to the northeast of the original search area—an area largely unknown to scientists, They’ve produced three-dimensional maps that show that the seabed is laced with volcanoes, crevasses, plateaus, and ridges. Depth ranges from about 2,000 feet to about 20.000 feet (almost four miles). On station now is the Dutch-owned and Malaysian-sponsored ship Fugro Phoenix—an oceanographic survey ship. Scheduled to arrive on station shortly are the Fugro Discovery and the Fugro Equator.

I’m skeptical that they will find Flight # 370. The search area is fraught with hazards and I’m not sure that their search technology has the capability to find the aircraft—if it is there. Since this aircraft disappeared, a notion tugs at my reason the Malaysia Flight # 370 is elsewhere.