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
C
arolina 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 Chapel Hill 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-plus-years-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 22
chapelhillmagazine.com
November 2020
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! 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
