Pearl Harbor

Just over a week ago I got to stand in a place where history was made.

Because I grew up in Britain, my view of WWII has always been shaped from the perspective of a Brit. I was focused on the European theatre, and Africa, maybe the Eastern Front. Both my grandfathers and my grandmother, numerous aunts and uncles all joined up and fought in Europe. Frankly, I never understood why the Americans weren't fighting Hitler when Germany invaded Poland in Sept 1939. I knew the Japanese had invaded mainland China, but I hadn't put that timeline into context with WWII.

Visiting Pearl Harbor and the museum there brought the war in the Pacific Theatre to vivid life, which is ironic and incredibly sad at the site where so many people died. The museum tells the story from both the Japanese and the American POV. And, right now, there is a display on board the USS Missouri all about the kamikaze pilots who attacked that day. It is fascinating. If you want to read more about the attack itself you should read the website. It has photos and great historical detail and is much more interesting than I will ever be.

The most poignant part of the visit to Pearl Harbor was the trip out to the USS Arizona which was sunk with 1177 lives lost. The memorial straddles the wreck itself--an official war grave and tomb.

Memorial USS Arizona

The tree of life at the memorial

The tree of life at the memorial

Names of the dead.

The dock of the USS Arizona

The wreck of the USS Arizona

The stern of the USS Arizona, looking toward USS Missouri

You can see the slight stain of oil on the surface of the water--oil that still leaks from the wreckage of the USS Arizona. 

USS Missouri

After visiting the memorial we drove to Ford Island for a tour of the USS Missouri. The Missouri wasn't commissioned until 1944, but she played an important part in the end of the war. There's a lot of symbolism at Pearl Harbor about the start and end of WWII. This ship is where the Japanese Instrument of Surrender was sighed in Tokyo Bay in September 1945, and the ship retired to the place where the war officially began.

The Canadian signed in the wrong spot and nearly screwed up the whole thing.

THIS EXACT SPOT!

The dent is where the ship was hit by a kamikaze plane.

I was honored to visit this incredible place and learn the history of America's entry into WWII. What happened on December 7th, 1941, changed the course of the world. It sounds so long ago, but the older I get, the closer it seems. Only seventy-five years ago the world was at war. I pray it never happens again and that the conflicts that exist today are soon over so we can all live in peace. 

History Comes Alive

I recently finished writing the final (and sixth) book in my Mindhunters series (hallelujah!). As I developed the backstory for my hero, Andrew “Einstein” MacKenzie, an ex-SEAL who works for my fictional serial-killer-hunting agency SSAM, I worked backward from the few facts I’d already revealed in the previous books. I realized he would have been in college at the time of the 9-11 attacks, and being the genius that he is, it didn’t take long for me to figure out he could easily have attended MIT and was in his senior year there when 9-11 happened. I added a personal stake in the horrible events of that day and decided he'd signed up for military service the moment he graduated, wanting to prevent terrorists from claiming more innocent lives. (Eventually, he was injured, left the SEALs and wound up in my book, of course.)

While my book doesn't take place during 9-11, I bring this up today because thinking about Einstein—my character’s nickname, not the scientific icon—had me thinking about fictional stories in which actual historical events either impacted the characters directly or came alive for me because I was seeing history through his or her eyes.

One example that came to mind was a historical romance trilogy I read many years ago. I still recall the vivid use of the real event in the three stories, probably because that particular event was one I knew little about. Susan Wiggs’ Chicago Fire Trilogy is set during the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, which killed hundreds of people and left about a hundred thousand people homeless. Though I’d briefly heard about the fire in history class, it really came alive when experienced through Wiggs' characters.

Artist's rendering of the fire, by John R. Chapin, originally printed in Harper's Weekly; the view faces northeast across the Randolph Street Bridge. Image as shown on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chicago_Fire.

Another book that stuck with me was Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. The love story (or love triangle) unfolded against the backdrop of the French Revolution. 

Which brings to mind Victor Hugo's Les Miserables. Part of what makes this such a great story are the endearing and powerful characters who are challenged by the lives they led in French society in the early nineteenth century, from the Battle of Waterloo to the July Revolution of 1830.

Is there a period of history you enjoy reading about or experienced more vividly after reading a fictional account? Any memorable books that used history as a backdrop in a way that challenged the characters (I know there have to be thousands of examples!)? What era or event would you like to see more fiction set in?