Interview with history writer Helena P Schrader

History writer Helena P. Schrader is here today to chat with me about Moral Fibre: A Bomber Pilot’s Story.

The full list of Helen’s WOW! Women on Writing virtual book tour stops is at the end of the post.

Bio:
Helena P. Schrader is an established aviation author and expert on the Second World War. She earned a PhD in History (cum Laude) from the University of Hamburg with a ground-breaking dissertation on a leading member of the German Resistance to Hitler. Her non-fiction publications include Sisters in Arms: The Women Who Flew in WWII, The Blockade Breakers: The Berlin Airlift, and Codename Valkyrie: General Friederich Olbricht and the Plot against Hitler.

In addition, Helena has published nineteen historical novels and won numerous literary awards. Her novel on the Battle of Britain, Where Eagles Never Flew, won the Hemingway Award for 20th Century Wartime Fiction and a Maincrest Media Award for Historical Fiction. RAF Battle of Britain ace Wing Commander Bob Doe called it “the best book” he had ever seen about the battle. Traitors for the Sake of Humanity was a finalist for the Foreword INDIES awards. Grounded Eagles and Moral Fibre have both garnered excellent reviews from acclaimed review sites such as Kirkus, Blue Ink, Foreword Clarion, Feathered Quill, and Chantileer Books.

Welcome, Helena. Please tell us about your current release.
Moral Fibre is a novel based on eye-witness accounts and other historical material telling the story of a bomber pilot, his crew and the woman he loved.

The protagonist, Flying Officer Kit Moran, has worked his way up through the ranks of the RAF and flown a complete operational tour as a Flight Engineer, but on the 6^th flight of his second tour, his best friend and pilot is killed in a night fighter attack. The next day he refuses to fly with a new crew and is thrown off his squadron for “Lacking Moral Fibre” (LMF), i.e. cowardice. The psychiatrist assigned his case, however, does not believe he is LMF, and he is offered flight training instead. This is explained in the “Prologue” to the book.

Moral Fibre proper opens after Moran has earned his pilot’s wings, and is on the brink of operational training, crewing up and returning to operations. While this is challenging in itself, his life is complicated by the fact that he has fallen in love with his dead friend’s fiancé — but she is not yet ready to become romantically involved again.

What inspired you to write this book?
The main character. He insisted that I tell his story. And yet, while it is the story of only one bomber pilot, his crew and the woman he loved, it is intended as a tribute to them all. The men who flew with RAF Bomber Command in WWII had a less than 50% chance of surviving and their average age was 21. I think they deserve more attention and credit, so I have done my best to do that through this book

 

Excerpt from Moral Fibre:
Opening scene of Chapter One (note: this is not the prologue in which Kit confronts the psychiatrist):

Panic didn’t set in until the train pulled out of the station. After fighting what seemed like half the merchant navy on the platform, Kit had, thanks to his RAF railway warrant, secured a seat in a First-Class compartment. Squeezed between a RN first lieutenant and a self-important civilian, he suddenly felt trapped. Why on earth was he travelling half-way across the country to spend a week in a village he’d never seen with people he didn’t know?

Christopher “Kit” Moran had just spent six months in South Africa under the Empire Training Scheme. The former flight engineer now wore the distinctive silver wings on his RAF tunic that proclaimed him a pilot, while his sleeve bore the single wide stripe of a Flying Officer. He had seven days of “disembarkation leave” before he reported for operational training. His family, however, lived in Nigeria, and since he had no relatives in England, he had accepted Georgina Reddings’ invitation to spend the week with her parents in Yorkshire.

Georgina had been engaged to Kit’s former skipper, Donald Selkirk, who had been killed in action in November of the previous year. Georgina’s intense grief at his death and open display of emotion had embarrassed her fellow students at the teacher training college, shocked family friends, and convinced her doctor that she needed psychiatric help. Kit, on the other hand, hadn’t minded listening to her talk incessantly about Don. He felt it was the least he could do for his dead friend. In the last four weeks before he left for South Africa, Georgina and Kit had shared their memories of Don. They had seen a lot of each other in this time but had not become romantically involved.

To Kit’s surprise Georgina had written to him while he was in South Africa — fifty-eight times. At first, her letters had been all about Don and her feelings for him, but she politely ended her letters by asking Kit about himself. He answered cautiously, saying nothing about his feelings, only what he was doing, the people he met, the places he went. Gradually, she enquired further, apparently finding vicarious joy in his sense of accomplishment as he mastered flying or his pleasure at seeing his parents again when they came all the way from Nigeria for a short visit. Gradually, her letters became more about the present than the past, about the two of them rather than Don.

Cautiously yet with studied casualness, Kit had risked mentioning that he would have a week’s leave on arrival and didn’t know what to do with it. He’d hoped Georgina would suggest meeting up and spending time together. Instead, she suggested he spend the week with her parents. Kit wasn’t quite sure what he should make of that.

As the train got up steam, Kit studied his fellow passengers in the six-seater compartment. The RN lieutenant was sleeping with his cap pulled low to shield his face. The civilian was making corrections to some paperwork and handing it page by page to his personal secretary, who sat opposite him. The other two passengers, middle-aged women in WVS and VAD uniforms respectively, were lost in knitting and reading. The wheels clacked, the carriage rattled, the dusty curtains swayed to the rhythm of the rails.

Kit undid the left breast button of his tunic to remove Georgina’s last letter. Holding it up in the dim blue overhead light, he read it for the hundredth time. “Why don’t you spend your leave with my parents in Foster Clough?” She asked in her lovely, elegant script, evoking her melodic voice in his mind. “It’s a beautiful part of the country that you really ought to get to know, and there’s excellent shooting too. No big game such as you have on your safaris, of course,” he could hear her tinkling laugh in those written words, “but lots of pheasant, partridge, grouse and hare. It’s wonderful country for riding, too, and my two hunters could use the exercise. But if it rains (as it does a lot), you’ll love the books in my father’s library.” All very nice and inviting, but not a word about wanting her parents to meet him. It was, he decided, pointedly impersonal, despite being tailored to his known interests of hunting, riding and reading.

To make things worse, the letter continued, “I’ll try to join you if you’re there over a weekend, but my apprentice teaching starts this autumn, and the college has a rigorous summer program of preparation and orientation. Given how difficult travel is these days, I doubt I’ll be able to get home for more than a day.” That was all understandable, but it didn’t exactly sound like a young woman willing to move heaven and earth in order to spend time with the young man she was keen on, either.

Kit’s eyes lingered over the sentences one more time, and then with an inward sigh he folded the letter and slipped it back into his pocket. No matter how he read it, it did not sound like a love letter.

So, why was he doing this to himself? Wasn’t he facing enough challenges returning to England and to operations? In roughly five months he was going to have to get into a bomber and fly it through God-knew-what-awful weather, flak and enemy fighters with six other men depending on him to get them there and back. He believed he could do it. He was determined that he would do it. But why complicate his life with unrequited love?

Because, of course, he hoped that Georgina would come to love him — if only they could see a little more of one another.

 

What exciting story are you working on next?
The Berlin Airlift. It was truly one of the most remarkable battles of the Cold War, or indeed in history. The Soviets cut off an entire city of 2 million people from access to food, fuel, medicines, toiletries, and everything else needed for survival. It was as much a siege as any in the Middle Ages. Their objective was to force the Western Allies to leave Berlin and force the Berliners to accept Communism. The Western Allies managed — after a massive investment of human and material resources — to supply the city entirely by air. The Soviets had to abandon the siege after less than a year, and the Allies remained in Berlin until the Soviet Union collapsed. In the course of the siege and airlift it triggered, the Soviets mutated from ally to enemy and the Germans from enemies to friends.

My novel — or novels actually, as I plan a three-part series — will attempt to capture not only the multifaceted political, military and economic aspects of the conflict but also the changing attitudes seen through the eyes of British, American and German characters — but not Russian ones. I do no have sufficient insight into the mentality of the Soviets to do an honest and credible job of writing from the Soviet point-of-view. The other characters are diverse, however, and I hope highly engaging. There’s a female Air Traffic Controller, for example — which is historical, the RAF employed WRAF controllers during the airlift. There is also a woman pilot flying with one of the civilian companies contracted by the RAF. Two of the male characters, one British and one American, are former bomber pilots, now flying a humanitarian mission to the very people they had dropped explosives on before. On the German side there is a Social Democratic city official, who had spent time in a Concentration Camp for his opposition to Hitler, and the younger brother of one of the aristocratic officers executed for the attempted coup of July 20, 1944.

When did you first consider yourself a writer?
In college. Although I started writing in second grade, it was in college that I became convinced it was the most important thing in my life. I also made the decision at that time not to try to earn a living from writing. I was afraid that the need to earn money from writing might force me to write what the market wanted rather than what was inside me. I wanted to be financially independent, so that my writing would remain “uncorrupted.” I was very idealistic.

Do you write full-time? If so, what’s your work day like? If not, what do you do other than write and how do you find time to write?
Since I retired three years ago, yes, I write full-time. Before that I had a demanding job as an American diplomat and could only work on the weekends and during holidays. Now, I start the day by walking my two dogs for an hour or more somewhere in the countryside where they can run around off the lead. I do any necessary errands after that, so that by noon I am free to focus on writing. I sit down after lunch and work straight through, pausing for about an hour at dinner time, and then work again until 8:30. That’s when my husband and I put our respective work aside, and sit together under the stars in summer or before the open fire in winter and talk over a glass of wine or two until bed.

I should note, however, that I am usually working on more than one project at a time, each in a different stage of development. For example, I may be researching for one book and writing another or writing one book and marketing another. What this means is that block of “writing” time isn’t necessarily all spent on the same project or doing the same activities. I may spend three days researching a non-fiction book, one day marketing a published book, and three days writing a new novel. I find, however, that I need to allocate a whole day to one book or another. I need to be able to concentrate and get into the period I’m writing about mentally.

What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?
I spend a lot of time thinking about my characters in scenes that I don’t actually write. Understanding my characters fully means I know a great deal more about them than I share with the reader.

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
A famous and successful novelist.

Anything additional you want to share with the readers?
That this isn’t really “my” novel — it’s Kit’s. I am only the medium or tool that he selected to tell his story. I have questioned his wisdom in selecting me, since obviously there are more popular and more successful writers that would have gotten his story out to more people faster. I can only speculate that those more successful writers were too busy to listen to him when he tried to tell them about himself. Be that as it may, I hope that readers will take the time to get to know Kit and his Georgina. They are wonderful people and have greatly enriched my life. I think they would enrich the lives of anyone who takes the time to get to know them.

Links:
Website | Cross Seas Press | Schrader’s Historical Fiction Blog | European Aviation History | Goodreads

Thanks for being here today, Helena!

 

— Blog Tour Calendar

August 15th @ The Muffin
Join us as we celebrate the launch of Moral Fibre by Helena P. Schrader. Read more about this fascinating historical fiction novel and learn more about the author. You can also enter to win a copy of the book too! https://muffin.wow-womenonwriting.com

August 17th @ Deborah Adams’ Blog
Deborah Adams features Helena P. Schrader’s guest post about dissecting a novel. http://www.deborah-adams.com/blog/

August 19th @ Life According to Jamie
Join Jamie as she reviews Moral Fibre by Helena P. Schrader. https://lifeaccordingtojamie.com/

August 21st @ What Is That Book About?
Join Michelle as she features Moral Fibre by Helena P. Schrader. https://www.whatisthatbookabout.com/

August 22nd @ Mindy McGinnis’ Blog
Join Mindy as she features a guest post by Helena P. Schrader about how editors are not optional. https://www.mindymcginnis.com/blog

August 23rd HERE!

August 24th @ A Writer of History
Read Helena P. Schrader’s guest post about the challenges of designing book covers for historical fiction. https://awriterofhistory.com/

August 25th @ Bring on Lemons
Join Crystal as she reviews Moral Fibre by Helena P. Schrader. http://bringonlemons.blogspot.com/

August 26th @ Bookshelf Journeys
Read Terri’s review of Moral Fibre by Helena P. Schrader. https://bookshelfjourneys.com/

August 27th @ Mercedes Rochelle’s Blog
Read Helena P. Schrader’s guest post featuring her book Moral Fibre. https://mercedesrochelle.com/wordpress/

August 30th @ World of My Imagination
Join Nicole as she reviews Moral Fibre by Helena P. Schrader. https://worldofmyimagination.com

September 1st @ The Faerie Review
Check out a spotlight of Moral Fibre by Helena P. Schrader. https://www.thefaeriereview.com/

September 2nd @ Author Anthony Avina
Anthony reviews Moral Fibre by Helena P. Schrader. https://authoranthonyavinablog.com/category/reviews/

September 5th @ Choices
Join Madeline as she features a guest post by Helena P. Schrader about the author and the seven drafts. http://madelinesharples.com

September 10th @ A Storybook World
Join Deirdre as she features Moral Fibre by Helena P. Schrader. https://www.astorybookworld.com/

September 12th @ Word Magic
Fiona shares a guest post by author Helena P. Schrader about the lack of moral fibre. https://fionaingramauthor.blogspot.com/

September 17th @ Jill Sheets’ Blog
Visit Jill’s blog today where she interviews author Helena P. Schrader. http://jillsheets.blogspot.com/

September 18th @ Wildwood Reads
Join Megan as she reviews Moral Fibre by Helena P. Schrader. https://wildwoodreads.com/