ON LOVE AND WAR AND
WRITING
A Q&A WITH AUTHOR ROBERT HUDDLESTON, 96, ABOUT HIS NEW WORLD WAR II HISTORICAL FICTION (A LOT OF ACTION WITH A DASH OF ROMANCE) NOVELLA
Carolina Meadows’ Robert Huddleston’s new historical novel is based on his experiences as a fighter pilot in the European Theater of Operations during World War II. Born three years before Charles Lindbergh made his cross-Atlantic solo flight, Robert credits the flying aces of World War I and Lucky Lindy as his inspirations to learn to fly, with an added motivation (see below) to becoming a fighter pilot. His new book – “Love and War,” available on Amazon (Paperback, $8.95; hardcover, $21.95; E-book, $4.50) – spans events from the First World War through the end of World War II. Robert and his wife, Pepita, moved to Chapel Hill in 1999, “[W]hen we found Pennsylvania too cold for two elders. We were retired, though I presented myself as a freelance [but unpaid] writer. We purchased a house in Columbia Place just off what was then Airport Road. It was a good investment, and we sold it in 2004 when we moved to Carolina Meadows.” The following is a lightly edited transcript of an email conversation between Robert and Chatham Magazine’s Dan Shannon.
This is your first full-length novel, correct? Why did you decide to write it? I think due to its brevity, “Love and War” should have been labeled a novella – my second, in fact. In 2014 I published the fictional “An American Pilot with the Luftwaffe.” It was favorably reviewed in Air Power History [magazine]. [The reason I finally wrote it in my mid-90s] was a fellow pilot, Captain Floyd Blair – he and I and one other pilot, who is now 100-plusyears-old, are the last known of our group to be alive – liked the short stories I had written over the years and urged me to write a novel. And it was the late Herb Bailey, a Carolina Meadows neighbor (who edited the Princeton [University] Press for 40 years), who urged me to try my hand at fiction. Let’s talk about your book. “Love and War” traces two connected families from WWI through WWII, and without spoiling anything, is it based on your life? Every chapter in some way relates to my experience and/or my reading and hearing. I simply [tied] it all together using my imagination. You know, that “thing” we are born with that has ghosts in our bedroom and bad persons under our bed. But, as adults, it can produce serial novelists!
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You served as a fighter pilot in the waning days of WWII, completing 36 combat missions. Thank you for your service. What drove you to become a fighter pilot in the war? The smart-ass answer: Girls! It’s difficult to find glamour in war, but the public laid it on for fighter pilots – they were called the “Knights of the Air” in WWI, and in WWII, the public idolized fighter pilots in the U.S. Army Air Corps and British RAF [Royal Air Force], even the German Luftwaffe (the latter having the best-looking uniforms). Among my friends, of the many who tried, just three received the coveted silver wings: one a P-61 pilot (a night fighter), another a P-51 Mustang pilot who became an “ace” with six aerial victories, and yours truly, a P-47 Thunderbolt pilot used mainly in support of ground forces. I’m guessing Ernie Brown, the dashing pilot in the book, who, like you, flew P-47 fighter-bombers, is based on someone you knew? Yes, the [fictional] Ernie Brown was based on the first CO [commanding officer] of my unit, Carroll McColpin, who had been a squadron CO with the RAF in units of American pilots
called Eagle Squadrons. He and I flew P-47s in combat, but I had [Ernie] serving with the British RAF before Pearl Harbor. Ernie had to be born in 1920 to pull that off. And when those American RAF pilots transferred to the U.S. Eighth Air Force in September 1942, they flew P-47s before receiving P-51 long-range fighters. As an aside, one American Eagle married an English aristocrat, and Pepita’s father’s second wife was a German princess! How long did you serve? I was separated from active duty in January 1946, but remained in the Air Force Reserve, promoted to captain and discharged from the reserves in 1957. At the end of the war, your service took an interesting turn that led to your being involved in the dismantling of the German V-2 rocket program. At VE [Victory in Europe] Day, May 8, 1945, my unit, the 404th Fighter Group, occupied a former Luftwaffe base
near the border of what would be the Soviet Occupation Zone. Not surprisingly, the U.S. military coveted German advanced military hardware and research documents. Our Air Force wanted anything connected to jet aircraft and rockets [the Germans had] in production or planned. With the Soviets due to move in [very soon], there was little time to locate what was coveted and move it to the American Zone of Occupation. I volunteered.