Tag: war

Night Witches in the Sky

  By

★★★
“Spirits in the sky.”

kinopoisk.ru

This was made in the early eighties, when the Soviet Union and United States were making loud, growling sounds at each other. Being a product of that era perhaps explains the way this feels almost like a propaganda film, made to inspire the population to be prepared to fight in defense of the motherland. Its closest cousin on this site is therefore the similar Chinese film, The Red Detachment of Women. The topic here is one we’ve covered before: the renowned “Night Witches”, the all-female air force squadron, who carried out reconnaissance and bombing missions against the Germans on the Eastern front, during the second half of World War II.

The two central characters are Galya Polikarpova (Druz) and Oksana Zakharchenko (Grushina). The former is recuperating from injury in hospital, but sneaks out against doctor’s orders in order to rejoin her colleagues on the front lines. The pair are hauled over the coals for this by their long-suffering commanding officer (Menshikova), but are able to escape punishment due to the shortage of fliers making operational needs more important. Thereafter… Well, to be perfectly honest, not a great deal happens, and the film comes in at less than 80 minutes.  At points, it almost feels like an edited-down version of a longer feature.

For instance, there’s one point where they are being harried by a Messerschmitt – then, suddenly, they’re landing in a field to sweep up an orphaned boy, Fyodor (Zamulin), who becomes an unofficial mascot of the squadron, despite efforts by the higher-ups to send him away. There’s also a long-distance romance between Galya and another soldier that didn’t do much for me.

However, one point about this production is particularly worth noting. Director Yevgeniya Zhigulenko was actually a “night witch” herself, having been a member of the 588th Night Bomber Regiment. Initially a navigator in May 1942, she became a pilot and eventually a flight commander. By the end of the war, she had flown close to a thousand sorties, and been awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. There can’t be many films from any country set in World War II, which were directed by someone who took part in the events depicted.

This was one of two features she made, and seems more functional than particularly artistic, though may have been constrained by its budget. Some of the flying sequences are… let’s say, not particularly convincing. But perhaps due to the director’s background, it does have a down-to-earth (pun not intended) approach which does occasionally work in the film’s favour. One example would be when the women are struggling to get their planes launched out of the mud, after heavy rain. But generally, the tempo is kept upbeat and patriotically optimistic, with only occasional nods to the heavy toll of life taken by the conflict. All told, a decent effort; I’d just give the edge to the TV series Night Swallows, whose greater length allows for more depth in its characterizations.

Dir: Yevgeniya Zhigulenko
Star: Yana Druz, Valentina Grushina, Dima Zamulin, Nina Menshikova
a.k.a. V nebe ‘Nochnye vedmy’

A Private War

  By

★★★
“You’re never going to get to where you’re going if you acknowledge fear.”

The profession of journalist is not exactly well-regarded by many people these days. So it’s nice occasionally to be reminded that they can still potentially be action heroes, risking their own lives in pursuit of the truth. In this case, it’s Marie Colvin (Pike), a foreign correspondent for London’s Sunday Times newspaper, who lost an eye while covering the civil strife in Sri Lanka, leading to a piratical eye-patch for the rest of her career. Most people would treat that as a sign from the universe to look into a change of profession. But Colvin was made of sterner stuff, despite a hellacious case of post-traumatic stress disorder, with which she largely coped by drinking heavily. So she and photographer sidekick Paul Conroy (Dornan) continue to venture into the world’s hot-spots, whether it’s Iraq, Libya or Syria. There, they expose the terrible human cost that the conflicts have on the local population, without apparent concern for their own safety.

It’s not a spoiler to say this doesn’t end well, for Colvin was indeed killed in Homs, Syria in a January 2012 explosion. And that’s kinda the thing which both drives the narrative and irritates the heck out of me. The film opens and closes with the quote from its subject at the top. However, to counter-quote her with Arthur Conan Doyle, “It is stupidity rather than courage to refuse to recognize danger when it is close upon you.” As depicted here, it seems as if the journalist almost had a death-wish, spitting in the face of danger long past what was prudent or even had much purpose. There’s little or no acknowledgement by Colvin that a dead writer won’t be able to achieve much. If you don’t get out safely to tell the stories you have gathered, what’s the point? You can argue, to some extent, it’s this and her other flaws which render its heroine human.

On the other hand, I found it extraordinarily hard to relate to Marie, with her choices and subsequent actions being so entirely alien to me. She insists on getting right to the core of suffering, even if this means asking its subjects brutal questions. Is this laudable journalism? Or a close cousin to the reporters who shove microphones at victims of tragedy and ask, “How do you feel?” Director Heinemann was responsible for the very good documentary Cartel Land, but seems to struggle a bit when he has to generate the narrative, rather than just recording it. We get only fragments that hint at Colvin’s character, such as a habit of wearing expensive bras, because she declares, “If anyone’s gonna pull my corpse from a trench, I want them to be impressed.” While there’s no denying the bravery of her chosen profession, or her qualifications for this site (albeit in the unorthodox wing!), and former Bond-girl Pike is excellent, I wasn’t left with any deeper appreciation of the why, rather than the how, of her life.

Dir: Matthew Heineman
Star: Rosamund Pike, Jamie Dornan, Tom Hollander, Stanley Tucci

Les Filles du Soleil

  By

★★★
“Three into one won’t go”

There’a a good film in here. Actually, there may be as many as three good films in here. But the way in which they are melded together, manages to rob a good chunk of the power and impact from all of them. We begin by following Mathilde H (Bercot), a war journalist clearly modelled on Marie Colvin, down to the eye-patch and traumatic experience in Homs, Syria – Mathilde lost her eye there, Marie was killed. She has just started the process of embedding herself in Kurdistan, covering the locals’ attempt to regain territory taken from them by ISIS. The second story is that of Bahar (Farahani), leader of a Kurdish women’s battalion, who was forced to flee her hometown, losing her son in the process. She has heard rumours he is being radicalized and trained as a child soldier in occupied territory, and will risk anything to liberate him.

But wait! There’s more. For Bahar was also captured by ISIS herself, and held as a sex-slave, until she managed to escape and make her way back across the front-line. Her subsequent recruitment into the military, gives her the chance to take revenge on her captors – both for herself and for the thousands of other women who weren’t so lucky as to regain their freedom. On their own, any of these stories would be fine. The problem is that Husson does a real dog’s dinner of assembling them into a single narrative, and the result weakens all of them. There’s a convoluted structure of flashbacks and side angles, to the point that Mathilde ends up serving little narrative purpose herself. It’s a pity, as in Farahani, the director has found a marvellous actress, worthy of playing the heroine. In particular, she has amazing eyes that are both luminous and expressive. She reminds me a bit of the famous “Afghan Girl” photograph.

Of the three stories, probably unsurprisingly, it’s the most action-oriented one which I liked best. Bahar and her fellow soldiers make their way into enemy territory through a tunnel. It’s mined, yet they have a captured ISIS soldier to guide them past the booby-traps… or will he? It’s almost painfully tense, and a stark reminder that in this kind of war, you can never truly relax, with potential death lurking around every corner. It also helps that Bahar carries herself in a way that seems legitimate and battle-hardened (a bit of a shame the film isn’t apparently interested in the details of how she went from being a wife and mother, to commanding troops on the front-line). But just when this is getting a full head of steam, we suddenly switch to an extended flashback of her time in captivity. This would have worked much better as a chronological narrative. Instead, it’s a fatal blunder from which the film sadly never recovers. Rather than surging towards a climax, it peters out in sadly predictable melodrama.

Dir: Eva Husson
Star: Golshifteh Farahani, Emmanuelle Bercot, Zubeyde Bulut, Maia Shamoevi
a.k.a. Girls of the Sun

Kat’s Rats by Michael Beals

  By

Literary rating: ★★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆☆☆

I reviewed the first book in the series last year, and to be honest, found it a bit of a mixed bag. I was thus a bit surprised when the author contacted me and offered me a copy of volume two, in exchange for an unbiased review. Kinda brave. The good news is, this is a genuine improvement. Not perfect, certainly. But it has got one of the best ‘Final Bosses’ I’ve ever seen in a book.

To rewind. Katelyn Wolfraum is a German expat who has switched sides, and is now operating in North Africa as an agent of MI-6. This one starts off with her in and around Morocco, preparing for a looming Allied invasion. However, the water is thoroughly muddied by the presence of various, more or less unaligned groups, from Vichy soldiers to Jewish partisans, with whom Kat and her team of under-the-radar operatives have to interact. With the mission constantly evolving, she has to be quick in her ability to adapt, and fearless in her willingness to go up against enemies, the likes of which the world has never seen.

Which brings me to that Final Boss: an experimental German weapon known as the Landkreuzer P. 1000 Ratte. It’s a tank which weighs – and this is not a misprint – a thousand tons. For comparison, the heaviest tank currently in operational service, the M1A2 Abrams, weighs just 62 tons. This Landkreuzer is mounted with battleship guns, has impenetrable armor and its 16,000 horsepower engines mean literally nothing the Allies throw at it can stop the Landkreuzer. Oh, and Kat’s Nazi father is on board, for extra plot points.

The most startling thing might be, this monster wasn’t just some fever dream of Beals’s. It was actually proposed in 1942: Hitler loved the idea, but wiser heads prevailed. However, this book offers a glimpse at what this behemoth might have been like in action. And if you’re a fan of absolute mayhem, like I am, it’s glorious. There’s even an explanation offered for why this action was wiped from the historical record – basically, to make General Patton look good. He’s one of a number of genuine historical figures on both sides who are sprinkled in, adding a certain authenticity. Hence we get cameos by Audie Murphy and Claus von Stauffenberg, and the chunk in Morocco seems slightly influenced by a certain Humphrey Bogart film.

On the downside, the middle section, before the Landkreuzer shows up to provide focus, seems to consist of random action scenes bolted together, severely lacking in narrative flow. Then there’s things like the comparison of the machine to Godzilla: while perhaps not wrong, Godzilla didn’t appear until 1954. And Beals’s strength seems at the “big picture” level: there were times when I was less than clear about the details of who was doing what and to whom. But if you assume the answers to those questions are a) Kat, b) killing them and c) the enemy, you’ll probably not be too far off. Given my main complaint about book one was, “It needs considerably more Kat”: consider that addressed.

Author: Michael Beals
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
2 of 4 in the Adventures of Kat’s Commandos series.

The Dawns Here are Quiet (2015)

  By

★★★
“Back to war”

While initially released as a film, what’s reviewed here is the extended cut, screened as four 45-minute episodes on Russia’s Channel One in May 2016. This is easily available, on both Amazon Prime and YouTube with English subtitles, so seemed more appropriate. However, it’s likely the case that your reaction will be determined largely by how familiar you are with the 1972 version. Having seen and reviewed that recently, this felt solid, but almost entirely superfluous, offering not enough in the way of a new spin on proceedings. But if you haven’t seen its predecessor, then this is potentially a little more accessible. Stemming from the post-Soviet era means it can be more cynical, and does play slightly less obviously as propaganda.

The story is almost identical. War-weary soldier Fedot Vaskov (Fyodorov) is invalided out to an anti-aircraft battery well behind the front lines. After complaining about the drunken and ill-disciplined soldiers under his command, he gets replacements – an all-female platoon. After being initially shocked, he realizes that they, under their leader Junior Sergeant Rita Osyanina (Mikulchina), are actually competent at their job. When one of them spots a couple of Nazi paratroopers in the enormous forest nearby, Vaskov takes Osyanina and four other soldiers into the woods to hunt the Germans down. Only, they discover there were actually considerably more than two, and the hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned Russians have to try and prevent the enemy from reaching their saboteurial objective.

If you’ve seen the earlier adaptation of Boris Vasilyev’s novel, there will be absolutely no surprises here. In terms of plot, this is almost point-for-point identical, and for me, that did rob the film of much tension, since I knew exactly where it was going to go, and who was going to survive. Again, though: that shouldn’t particularly be taken as a knock on this version, and the performances, especially from the two leads are equally as good. The differences are mostly stylistic: while both do use flashbacks in order to tell us about the women’s lives before the war, the ones here feel considerably more grounded, compared to the dream-like sequences in the seventies version. They are also notably harsher about life in Stalin’s Russia, such as one woman’s family being ruthlessly exiled to Siberia.

There are a couple of sequences of gratuitous, albeit entirely innocent, nudity, which I didn’t expect in a TV series. I’ll leave it up to you to decide, whether this is a recommendation or a warning. Personally, I had no complaints. However, I would definitely have preferred it if the makers had been a little more inventive in their adaptation. While going down the same path as the earlier, well-loved movie was probably the safer approach, it renders the entire thing largely pointless. Well-made and still entertaining, don’t get me wrong. But carbon copies [Kids! Ask your parents!] are always going to feel inferior, to the source which they are imitating.

Dir: Renat Davletyarov
Star: Pyotr Fyodorov, Anastasia Mikulchina, Evgenia Malakhova, Agniya Kuznetsova

The Dawns Here Are Quiet

  By

★★★½
“Can’t see the forest for the Nazis”

It’s the summer of 1942, and Soviet forces are facing the invading German Army. After Sergeant Major Vaskov (Martynov) requests soldiers for his anti-aircraft battalion who won’t get drunk and molest the local women, he gets what he wants. Except, the new arrivals are an all-female squad of soldiers, with whom Vaskov is initially singularly ill-equipped to deal. However, they prove their mettle, led by the efforts of Rita Osyanina (Shevchuk), and eventually win Vaskov’s respect. While returning to the barracks one night, Rita stumbles across two Nazi paratroopers; she, along with four colleagues and Vaskov, form a search party, and head deep into the surrounding forest to capture the Germans. However, they discover the real force is significantly bigger, and must begin a guerilla warfare campaign to disrupt the enemy’s mission, harrying them through the wooded and marshy terrain.

In contrast to larger epics, it’s a very small-scale, up close and personal approach to the war, taking place well away from the front lines. Released in two parts (though at 188 minutes, it’s less then twenty longer than Saving Private Ryan), the first section takes place at the anti-aircraft emplacement. The action there is mostly far overhead, and in the early going, it is a little tough to separate the rush of similar-looking women to whom we are suddenly introduced. Though I did like the stylistic approach of having the war take place in harsh black and white, while the soldiers in more peaceful times are depicted in colour, with an almost dreamlike version of reality.

When we get to the meat of the story, the film improves significantly. It’s fairly standard “small group taking on a larger force” stuff, a topic which has been mined frequently for war movies, from Zulu and The Alamo through Ryan to 300.  Yet it’s still effective to follow Vaskov and his handful of untested soldiers, as they go into battle with far more experienced warriors. Quite deliberately, the enemy are kept almost faceless, given no humanity at all: their speech is left unsubtitled, for instance. As the losses mount inexorably, there’s a genuine impact to them, and you’re left with an up-close and personal look at war and the human cost it has. Yet at the end, a radio broadcast casually dismisses the preceding three hours of heroic sacrifice with, “During the day of June 3rd, no major engagement took place on the front. However, some minor local fighting occurred in certain sectors.”

Based on Boris Vasilyev’s 1969 short novel of the same name, there was also a 2015 mini-series for Russian television (a review of that is coming soon); a Tamil-language Indian film (Peranmai); a Chinese TV series; and more unusually, the story was turned into not one but two operas, one in Russia and the other in China. However, this version was nominated for the Best Foreign Film Oscar, where it lost out to Luis Buñuel’s The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie. No death before dishonour there. 

Dir:  Stanislav Rostotsky
Star: Andrey Martynov, Irina Shevchuk, Yelena Drapeko, Yekaterina Markova

Wish Me Luck

  By

★★★½
“Life during wartime.”

This British TV series ran for three series from 1988 through 1990, with 23 episodes (each an hour long including commercials) in total. The same creators had previously been responsible for another WW2-based show, Tenko, about women in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp after the fall of Singapore. The time period here is similar – the second half of World War 2 – but the focus moves from the Far East to Occupied Europe, in particular, France. At this point, the Allies were sending in agents to assist the local Resistance – and as we’ve documented before, this was one of the few areas where women were used as much as men.

While partly inspired by the exploits of Nancy ‘The White Mouse’ Wake, the show cover a range of characters, both at home on London and on the ground in Vichy France. The main one present throughout is Faith Ashley (Asher), who eventually rises to run the department from London. She is responsible for recruiting (more or less) suitable candidates, getting them trained, and once they’re embedded, managing their needs. In the first season, it’s an exercise in contrasts: the two main agents sent over are an upper-class housewife Liz Grainger (Buffery), and factory worker from a refugee Jewish family, Matty Firman (Suzanna Hamilton). In the second and third series, the focus is more on Emily Whitbread (Snowden), an initially rather naive woman, barely old enough to join up. She quickly has to adapt and make some extremely difficult decisions.

It’s at its most effective when concentrating on ratcheting up the tension and depicting life in enemy territory, where the slightest slip can prove fatal. Interestingly, there’s no attempt made at the players speaking – or in most cases, even sounding – French. Yet, this is easy to forget, and soon seems natural, with their English accents still conveying information about their position and social standing. Less successful, with the exception of the final season, are the aspects portraying life in Britain. These are just not very interesting, save for the last batch of episodes. In those, Faith tries, with increasing desperation, to get much-needed resources for a rebellion, when the higher-ups are far more concerned with matters elsewhere. It’s an object lesson that the needs of the many may outweigh the needs of the few – yet the consequence for the few are no less tragic as a result.

The last season also has considerably loftier production values, with location shooting in France, and significantly more military hardware on view. However, the cheap music still undercuts this, apparently being played by a three-man band, when the action really needs something sweeping and orchestral. That still doesn’t destroy the tension of the final few episodes, when it becomes increasingly clear that the makers have no intention on letting all the characters walk off into the sunset unharmed. But you know what? I wouldn’t have it any other way. Because in wartime, there’s really no such thing as a happy ending.

Creators: : Jill Hyem & Lavinia Warner
Star: Jane Asher, Jane Snowden, Michael J. Jackson, Kate Buffery

Slaughter in the Desert, by Michael Beals

  By

Literary rating: ★ ★½
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆☆½

Katelyn Wolfraum is a German expat, who was working as a field agent for MI-6, until an unfortunate incident just before the war, involving a member of the British Royal Family, left her persona non grata with the authorities. Fast forward to 1941, the depths of World War II, and she’s an intelligence analyst under Colonel Lyons and Major Trufflefoot in the North African desert. With Field-Marshall Rommel tearing across the terrain in a blitzkrieg, she finds herself trapped deep behind enemy lines, along with a motley international band of Allied soldiers. When they discover evidence of a Nazi super-weapon about to be deployed, Kat and her colleagues decide to take the fight to the enemy and sabotage the Third Reich’s plans. But complicating matters is the presence of Kat’s foster father, who is now a high-ranking officer in the SS, tasked with ensuring the saboteurs are stopped.

A shaky start here, with the map in the frontispiece depicting a country called “Lybia”. Oops. And, indeed, after an early burst involving Kat’s imprisonment in, and subsequent escape from, the Tower of London, the first half of the book is mostly generic soldier stuff. She’s just one of a group, and not a particularly important one either, to the point that I was seriously wondering whether or not this would even qualify for the site. These stages weren’t very interesting or exciting, with a lot of random zipping around sand-dunes and running gun-battles against Ze Germans and Eyetalians. However, things improve in both departments further in: Kat became more pro-active and independent, demonstrating a hatred for fascists, that drives on her comrades when some would prefer more cautious options, and a love of Really Big Explosions which is quite endearing. The presence of a specific mission – stopping the Nazi super-weapon from being deployed – also gives proceedings some much-needed focus.

It’s still not what I’d call great or even good art, and there are too many unexplained holes in areas such as Kat’s background [though some may be explained in the second book, going by the snippet included as a teaser at the end here] The only sequence which sticks in my mind is the final attack, when Kat and the men launch a potentially suicidal assault on a coastal facility: they don’t know which of the three submarines docked there is the real target, so need to sink all three. It’s startlingly hyperviolent, culminating in two thousand tons of explosives going up – though describing it as “roughly equivalent to a 2-kiloton atomic bomb” is another faux pas, considering no atom bombs even existed for several years after this is set. Given the efforts made at military accuracy elsewhere by the author, I’d expect better. Overall, it needs considerably more Kat, and there’s no reason why she couldn’t have been operating solo for much of this, rather than diluting her obvious talents.

Author: Michael Beals
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
Book 1 of 2 in the Adventures of Kat’s Commandos.

Fallen Sun: The Great War, by Harule Stokes

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Literary rating: ★★★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆ ☆ ☆½

While not perfect, I think this one will probably end up sticking in my mind longer than most of the books I read. For one, it helps being a stand-alone and complete work, rather than the first of a multi-volume set. While I understand the rationale behind the latter – that’s where the bread and butter of writing income is made – it was refreshing to get a beginning, middle and proper end, without a cliff-hanger or opening for sequels. It was also different in content, rather than being yet another book which drops fantasy creatures like elves or vampires in a contemporary setting. I’ve seen enough of those this year, thankyouverymuch.

Instead, this takes place on a planet in the late stages of a brutal war between the Northern Alliance and Keynosa. Both sides have developed artificially-enhanced super soldiers, known as Fingers of God (FoG) or Guardians on their respective sides. It’s a brutal process, which few survive, and even those who do, risk an eventual collapse into psychosis. Beyond that, the two sides have different approaches: the Northerners exploit technology, while the Keynosians use biological weapons, in particular transforming the planet’s flora into lethal agents. After a long struggle, the Northerners are making a push for victory. However, their opponents are now also using their technology against them, which could potentially tip the balance of the conflict back to Keynosa.

The protagonist here is Jocelyn Martinez, a former teacher who is now a FoG. Her closest allies in the force are Ophelia, another FoG who is beginning to crack at the seams, and Patricia, a sniper who is still human. Like all soldiers – on both sides – they’re treated like mushrooms by their leaders. For instance, it turns out the anti-psychotic drugs FoGs need to take, interact badly with RX, the weedkiller sprayed in vast quantities to negate the Keynosian bioweapons. It’s hardly as if the FoGs need such problems, above and beyond mere survival. Yet as the end of the war approaches, the question looms: what do you do with  ultimate soldiers once peace breaks out. Making matters worse is Frank Sun, a FoG who went violently insane previously, but has now been released back on to the battlefield for the last push.

Initially, it’s all somewhat confusing, with much not immediately explained. It’s worth persevering, as Stokes does a very good job of getting inside Jocelyn’s head, and depicting the apparent contradictions therein. She’s capable of savage brutality, and the horrors of war are certainly not glossed over; yet Joceleyn is also tremendously loyal and willing to put herself in harm’s way for her comrades. The story also does a good job of switching perspectives, although the heroine encountering the “enemy” and finding – what a surprise! – they’re not so bad, was rather too obviously handled for my tastes. Fortunately, both the book and Jocelyn achieve redemption with a rousing final battle, and it’s almost enough to make me wish this had been another “Part one of” book. Almost…

Author: Harule Stokes
Publisher: Wave One Publishing, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book.

Agent High-Pockets, by Claire Phillips

  By

Literary rating: ★★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆

In September 1941, the author returns to Manila, the capital of the Philippines, starting work as a nightclub singer and falls in love with American GI, John Phillips. Which is unfortunate timing, because soon after, the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor, kicking off the war in the Pacific. A hasty marriage to John follows on Christmas Eve, but Japan invades, and Claire’s husband becomes a prisoner of war. Left to fend for herself, after a period spent hiding out in the countryside, she returns to Manila, adopting the persona of Dorothy Fuentes, born in the Philippines of Italian parents. In order to help the resistance, she opens a venue, Club Tsubaki, aimed at officers of the occupying forces.

This has a nice irony, since the profits from the business are used to fund both humanitarian work for the POW’s held on the islands, and the growing guerrilla forces up country. Additionally, “Dorothy” – also known as High-Pockets, for her habit of keeping valuables in her bra! – keeps her ears open, and becomes skilled at extracting useful intelligence from her patrons, though a combination of flattery and alcohol. This information, about troop movements, industrial facilities, etc. is then funneled back to the Allies for use in the conflict over the next couple of years. It’s a risky business, and eventually, the Japanese break up the ring, arresting those involved. Claire has to withstand torture and hellish prison conditions, before being sentenced to 12 years for her activities.

Fortunately, there is a happy ending here, since the Americans re-took Manila, freeing our heroine after a rough eight months, during which time she lost about 35% of her body weight. After the war she was awarded the Medal of Freedom, and a movie was made of her story – I Was an American Spy, starring Anne Dvorak as Claire. There are some doubts as to the accuracy of her account: a post-war claim for compensation was severely reduced, with many of her statements “later found to be without foundation,” the court even concluding there was “no corroboration of her testimony that she was married.” So we should likely take this her tale here with a pinch of salt as to the details, though the basic elements seem credible enough.

It takes a while to get to the good stuff, with rather too much about her social life, etc. Even after the invasion, she spends a good while suffering from malaria in a hut. The more it goes on, however, the more this improves, as you began to understand the daily terror of living in occupied territory, where every night could be your last, and any knock on the door might be the dreaded kempei, the military police. It’s also fascinating to read her techniques for extracting useful information from her clientele with seemingly innocent questions like “How many will be in your party? I must know so that I can reserve places.” Her matter-of-fact recounting the horrors of prison life is also memorable, such as the incident where a fellow prisoner caught and skinned a cat, eating it raw. Worst of all is the sentence which follows: “There was another cat on the premises, and I began to look at it longingly.”

To modern ears, there is something of a not-so casually racist tone here, Phillips spattering the text with references to “Japs”, “Nips”, etc. and mocking their efforts to speak Engrish [how’s her Japanese, I wondered…] However, given the war circumstances and situation – this was an invading force after all – we need to put this in context. This was a time, after all, when Hollywood was making cartoons like Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips. We probably shouldn’t condemn the author by applying modern standards to an entirely different situation, to which they do not fit.

Author: Claire Phillips
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services, available through Amazon as a paperback or e-book.
a.k.a. Manila Espionage