Like many heroes of World War II, General Albert C. Wedemeyer’s career has been largely overshadowed by such well-known figures as Marshall, Patton, Montgomery and Bradley. Wedemeyer’s legacy as the main planner of the D-Day invasion is almost completely forgotten today, eclipsed by politics and the capriciousness of human nature.
In the late 1930s Wedemeyer had the unique experience of being an exchange student at the German Kriegsakademia, the Nazis’equivalent of Fort Leavenworth’s Command and General Staff School. As the only American to attend, he was thus the only ranking officer in the US who recognised the revolutionary tactics of Blitzkrieg once they were unleashed, and he knew how to respond.
As US involvement in the European conflagration approached, Wedemeyer was taken under the wing of George C. Marshall in Washington, but although he conceived the plans for US mobilisation, to his great disappointment he was not appointed to field command once the invasion commenced; further, he had run afoul of Winston Churchill due to the latter’s insistence on emphasising the Mediterranean theatre in 1943.Perhaps because of Churchill’s animosity, Wedemeyer was transferred to the Burma-China theatre, where a year later he would replace General Stilwell. Ultimately, Wedemeyer’s service in the Asian theatre became far more significant, though less known. Had the US political establishment listened to Wedemeyer on China during the years 1943-48, it is possible China would not have been lost to the Communists and would have been a functioning US ally from the start, thus eliminating the likelihood of both the Korean and Vietnam Wars.
Everyone of course (at least everyone who reads this blog I assume) knows Shanghai Express (1932). I’m keen to always stress the role of Harry Hervey in the conception and making of the movie. Indeed I wrote an essay on Hervey and his original 33 page treatment (essentially a short story) for Shanghai Express that Hervey wrote and sold to Josef von Sternberg (who gave it to the scriptwriter Jules Furthman to adapt). I’ve always argued that (including by von Sternberg) Hervey was rather sidelined from any public input into the movie, which was a massive success. But this advert from 1932 that appeared in Film Daily that year does indeed mention Hervey as the originator of the story.
My piece on Hervey and Shanghai Express is in my collerction Destination Shanghai.
Harry Hervey…and a cat…at home in LA (i think) in 1933 – though Hervey is more associated with the South and Savannah in particular
The new Chinese and British Exhibition is now on at the British Library (entrance free) till next April 2023. So a few posts on things that relate to previous posts of mine here…Fourth cookbooks…
Born and raised in Sydney Australia, Hazzard lived around the world: in Hong Kong; Wellington, New Zealand; New York; Naples and Capri and her writing — cosmopolitan, richly intelligent, beautiful, questing — reflects her life. Her body of work is small but the acclaim it attracts is immeasurable, from among others, Michael Cunningham, Zoe Heller, Ann Patchett, Anne Tyler, Lauren Goff, Hermione Lee, Joan Didion, Richard Ford, Colm Toibin.
At sixteen, she was living in Hong Kong with her family and working for the British Combined Services. She later worked, another desk job, for the United Nations in New York and, briefly, in Naples. Italy — Capri and Naples — claimed her heart and after she was married — she was introduced to the biographer, Francis Steegmuller by Muriel Spark — they divided their time between Italy and America.
Drawing on diaries, letters, interviews alongside a close reading of Hazzard’s fiction — Brigitta Olubas, herself Australian — tells the story of a girl from the suburbs ‘with a head full of poetry’ who fell early under the spell of words and sought out first books and then people who loved books as her companions. In the process she transformed and indeed created her life. She became a woman of the world who felt injustice keenly, a deep and original thinker, who wrote some of the most beautiful fiction about love and longing, always with an eye to the ways we reveal ourselves to another.
The new Chinese and British Exhibition is now on at the British Library (entrance free) till next April 2023. So a few posts on things that relate to previous posts of mine here…third Xu Zhimo…
The new Chinese and British Exhibition is now on at the British Library (entrance free) till next April 2023. So a few posts on things that relate to previous posts of mine here…Second Dymia Hsiung…
Dymia, the first Chiense woman in Britain to write her autobiography and also the wife of the paywright and theatrical impressario Hsiung Shih-I gets a mention in the exhibition…here in an article on the family in England, The Happy Hsiungs (also the title of Diana Yeh’s biography of the couple) and Dymia’s book Flowering Exile.
The new Chinese and British Exhibition is now on at the British Library (entrance free) till next April 2023. So a few posts on things that relate to previous posts of mine here…First Chiang Yee…
Excellent to see Chiang feature in the exhibition after out Blue Plaque and symposium for him in Oxford in 2019, my BBC radio documentary on Chiang and the other Chinese intellectuals who lived in Hampstead in the 1930s and World War Two (click here) and the recent Hong Kong University Press Ciollerction of essays dedicated to Chiang and his London Circle (click here for details).
Two Chiang Yee books feature in the British Library exhibition…A Chinese Artist in Lakeland and The Silent Traveller in War Time…
NB: crime & espionage included as I review a lot. True crime omitted as I didn’t read much in 2022. Kept to only 2022 books (or 2021 out in paperback this year). Probably forgotten a few so apologies. No particular order of ranking, just what came to mind fastest…
Crime
Too Far from Antibes – Bede Scott – shades of Simenon and Green in 50s Saigon
Shifty’s Boys – Chris Offutt – Grit Noir at its finest
Razorblade Tears – SA Cosby – badass revenge tragedy from a new master
The Stoning – Peter Papathanasiou – the best Outback Noir to date
City on Fire – Don Winslow – the 80’s, Provincetown, the Irish and Italian mobs, Winslow…
Espionage
Paul Vidich – The Matchmaker – the legacy of the Cold War in Berlin
The Berlin Exchange – Joseph Kanon – 1960s spy swaps from the ever-reliable Kanon
No Second Take – Joy Joyce – an Irishman mixed up in dodgy business on the WW2 Riviera
City of Spies – Maria Timon – SOE, Portugal, 1943…great fun
The Unwanted Dead – Chris Lloyd – Wartime occupied Paris, murder, Nazi machinations
Fiction
On Java Road – Lawrence Osborne – Osborne’s world-weary Greeneland eye falls on HK
Justin T Clark – the Zero Season – 2 very different journeys from Cambodia to 1949 Paris
Lucy Caldwell – These Days – the horrors and resilience of the Belfast Blitz
Quentin Tarantino – Once Upon a Time in Hollywood – loads hated it; I was totally engrossed
Dwyer Murphy – An Honest Living – Brilliantly evoked just pre-digital NYC & the rare books world. A Chandler heir
Non-Fiction
A Village in the Third Reich – Julia Boyd – a tight dissection of small-town Bavarian fascism
Fragile Cargo – Adam Brookes – incredible story of saving China’s Forbidden City treasures
Hidden Heritage – Fatima Manji – deep dives on the side streets of UK multicultural history
The Barbizon – Paulina Bren – highly readable account of the famed Manhattan women-only building
Matthew Campbell & Kit Chellel – Dead in the Water – the criminality of shipping from Yemeni pirates to the nastier suited variety at Lloyds
Biography
Edda Mussolini – Caroline Moorehead – solid bio with some good China insights too
Ethel Rosenberg – Anne Sebba – finally giving Ethel her own voice in the horrible story
The Lost Cafe Schindler – Meriel Schindler – the café’s history is the story of a community destroyed
Arnold Bennett – Patrick Donovan – still sadly out of fashion Bennett is long overdue a comeback
I Used to Live Here Once – Miranda Seymour – putting Jean Rhys back in her rightful place as an important writer
Camera Man – Dana Stevens – Buster Keaton, early cinema and the growth of Hollywood
Autobiography
A Private Spy: The Letters 1945-2020 – John Le Carré – fascinating insight into the man & and his work
Abi Morgan – This is not a Pity Memoir – by turns funny & sad, but full of hope
Lea Ypi – Free – insightful page turner on growing up Albanian back in Hoxha’s day
Taste – Stanley Tucci – as delightful as you’d expect and then some…
The Language of Thieves – Martin Puchner – a personal history of Rotwelsch thieves’ cant
Short Stories
Land of Big Numbers – Te-Ping Chen – innovative short fiction explaining contemporary China
Homesickness – Colin Barrett – a great successor to Young Skins, suburban Ireland in all its glory
The Low Desert – Tod Goldberg – good novels, great short stories – the gangsters of Palm Spring/Nevada
Don Winslow – Broken – a great mix of styles but all with Winslow’s usual obsessions of betrayal and corruption
Rouge Street – Shuang Xuetao (trans: Jeremy Tiang) – 3 novellas on China’s left behind folk
