Old Stomping Grounds, NAS Pensacola, FL

Last Thursday I got an early morning text from my buddy over at Warbird Radio, Mr. Matt Jolley. Matt's an aviation aficionado to the extreme. Probably a good thing considering his line of work. Anyway, the essence of his message was that he'd just gotten a call from a friend doing research at the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, FL, and would I like to come along for the visit? The train, he said, departed at eight.

I was still in my post-workout nasty wear when I replied around 0730 something to the effect of: "Hell, yeah! I want a ticket on that train!" Hardly showered, I was picked up promptly at eight and we were off for a two hour jaunt to Pensacola, my old Navy stomping grounds from a lifetime ago.

Now, if you've got an interest in aviation history, and specifically Naval aviation history, and you've never been to the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, then you've missed the bus to Coolville, USA, Mister. This place is, in a word, amazing, and that word doesn't even come close to doing it justice. Aside from the museum's multitude of displays, its many rare pieces of history and its very polished presentation, it is one of the few museums I've been to where you can actually walk up and touch history. There are few if any ropes to cordon off visitors. For my money, this is the best air museum in the country outside of the Smithsonian, although I may be a bit bias given my resume.

Much has changed since my last trip there many years ago, however. Many new exhibits, an entirely new hanger, and an "academy," whose real purpose I've yet to divine. Other things remain the same. The Cubi Dog comes to mind -- a delectable, beany-brown sauce, sour cream, cheese and chopped onion covered piece of carcinogenic meat known in other circles as a chili dog.

What made this trip super special, though, goes beyond the nostalgia of retracing my past. Matt and I got our own personal tour of the museum with a walking encyclopedia of naval aviation history, Captain Richard Dann, a former Naval aviator and current author of several books devoted to various past warbirds. I learned things about aviation I never knew I didn't know. He's just one of those kind of guys.

The other part of this adventure that added to its cool factor is related to the pictures below. We were honored with a behind the scenes tour of the restoration area of the museum. Okay, forgive me as I take a moment to geek out and go all hyper aviation nerd on you.

Entrance to the restoration area of National Naval Aviation Museum.

You see, when you're in the display area of the museum you get the polished pieces. The ones that have had their flaking paint scraped off and redone or their rust holes drilled out and patched. But when you go to the restoration area, it is an entirely different ball game. Walking through this facility is about as close as I will come to being with some of these old warbirds in their last fatal moments before they and perhaps their crews met perilous ends. Many are as they were recovered, crumpled and encrusted in deposits built up over decades at rest under salty waters.

Piece of a Corsair under renovation. Note how the magnesium reacted with the minerals in the salt water.

They are as they were when they met their demise, and as I walked amongst them goosebumps peppered my flesh as these ghostly warbirds recovered from hallowed grounds all over the world encircled me. Some were found much closer to home, but their stories were no less harrowing. The below pictured Dauntless, recently recovered from Lake Michigan, is a prime example.

Engine, propeller and fuselage of recovered Dauntless located at NAS Pensacola.

Cockpit of recovered Dauntless located at NAS Pensacola.

Matt pointed out, as we poked our heads under the Dauntless fuselage and looked into the rear seat from where the crewman's feet once might have rested, how strange it was that the aircraft could have sustained so much damage and been at the mercy of cold and crushing depths and corrosive waters for so long, and yet we could still look up into the compartment and see the crewman's maplight still dangling from its connection, just as it was when he'd last used it.

Dauntless map light (shown in black and grey center screen) still dangles from connection point.

I could go on and on about this trip and maybe I will later, but for now it's time to get some work done. This trip keeps jumping to the forefront of my mind when I'm trying to write, though, so I figured it needed to get out 'there' or I'd never get any real writing done.

So, there it is. If you're close enough, drive to Pensacola and visit the museum. If not, plan a trip to the Florida Panhandle and then go see it. The beaches in Pensacola are beautiful. It'd make a great vacation spot and an even better excuse to visit the museum. Admission is free and the Cubi Dog comes highly recommended!

Why I like historical fiction

Someone asked me the other day why I like writing historical fiction. The truth is I like writing in several genres, but historical fiction offers some perks I can't find in most others. If I were writing a contemporary thriller, for instance, say in the vein of Vince Flynn or Tom Clancy, there are a lot of ways for me to steer a false course. You see, you readers today are much more knowledgable, or are at least able to gain access to facts more conveniently than what authors had to worry about in days past when either the reader knew whether an author got the facts right or not, or they had to spend significant time looking the facts up at a library. Google and Wikipedia changed all that.

Now if I want to play the modern thriller game, I've got to be plugged in to the latest and greatest tech-savvy toys available to super spies and how all the three-letter agencies go about their work. Problem is, much of that info is tough to dig up because it's...well, it's superspy-y. That is, it's not so well advertised. If I choose to write a story that takes place in the past, however, then the tech's already known, the boundaries of the "world" my characters inhabit are known, and it's simply a matter of getting the facts straight about stuff that's already happened or been. No problem, right? Well, not really, but that's another story.

Here's the quick and dirty of my pros and cons on writing historical fiction:

PROS:

• Don't have to worry about keeping up with the latest technologies.
• Sense of nostalgia. I love the feel and atmosphere of some of those old worlds. Whether completely true to the day or not, it is the remembrances each of us have from the experiences told to us from previous generations or through old Hollywood films that sometimes make us wish for simpler times.
• Gives me an excuse to explore, read about and research periods of history that interest me.
• Gives me an excuse to explore, read about and research places in history that interest me.
• It provides automatic boundaries for my world and characters to operate in.

CONS:

• Keeping things historically accurate requires work. True there's not the latest tech I have to know about, but I still have to do the research to make sure I'm at least keeping things respectably accurate.
• As an aside, I do veer off on language occasionally to make things contemporarily accessible. After all, who wants to read in old victorian English? When I read the Lord of the Rings trilogy years ago, I had to keep a dictionary at my side the whole time.
• History is what historians make of it. What one historian writes of a period may not mesh with what another writes, so you've got to pick your poison while doing your research and sell it to the reader sufficiently well enough that they don't bother questioning your facts and just live in and relish the story.

I do want to publish in multiple genres as time goes on. I've got the stories in mind already. This is not necessarily the smartest way forward as a writer. Most say it's best to stick with one genre and develop your audience. But I'm not sure if historical adventure is the best to stick with. While it's fun, it's also a very small niche in the market. As a fledgling author it's important to experiment and see where my voice is strongest. I don't know, but some of those erotica titles my book got listed next to on Amazon looked pretty interesting. 

At the very least, the research would be a hell of a lot of fun!

Lunch with history today

I had lunch with an original Tuskegee Airman today, Mr. Mervin Harmon.

He was an aircraft mechanic in those days and as much a part of the legacy of these men as anyone. As a former military aviator, I recognize that without the efforts of the folks on the ground keeping our birds running nothing we do in the air matters. In fact, without them, there is no doing anything in the air.

These men, the Tuskegee Airmen, were part of a period of our military and American history that until the late 1990s and 2000s really hadn't gotten the same recognition that many of our other veterans of WWII received. While an unforunate occurrence, today I and a few others were at least able to show our respect to this man, his lost peers, and a generation of others who fought the war on two fronts - against the Axis powers and against racial prejudice. I cannot imagine having to go through the experiences they did. Imagine, German POWs had more privileges on American bases than these American airmen did. And they didn't blink an eye when they went to war to defend America and her allies.

The WWII generation is slowly leaving us and it is important that we remember them, take the time to talk with those who still survive, and never forget the sacrifices they made.  We will likely never see combat on the scale these men experienced again. The nature of war has changed, and the politics that once found the level of blood shed during that era necessary or acceptable will (hopefully) never arise again. I also hope that the circumstances necessitating that level of conflict never resurface either.

My hats off to them all. Bravo Zulu.