What's Behind Mystery Writer Chester Campbell

I often hear that readers like to know personal stuff about authors, so I thought I would put together a few significant background bits about myself. The things we write about, the ideas we share, the events we describe come out of the knowledge and experiences we have gained over the years. For me, that adds up to 89-plus. Rather than use the old I pronoun, which would make it sound too self-centered, we'll switch to third person, the POV used in six of my novels—all but the Greg McKenzie Mysteries.

● Campbell graduated from East Nashville High School in 1943. He received the Overall Medal
as the city's outstanding ROTC cadet in his junior year.

● After enlisting in the Army Air Forces Reserve just out of high school, Campbell was called to active duty in January 1944 and served a year and ten months in the Eastern Flying Training Command during World War II.

● As a member of the class of 1949, Campbell was among the first to complete the new journalism curriculum at the University of Tennessee.

 

● Campbell began his writing career as a reporter for The Knoxville Journal while in his junior year at UT.

● Campbell received the Bronze Star Medal in the Korean War as a captain at Fifth Air Force Headquarters in Seoul. The citation said he "performed exceptionally meritorious service in support of operations in Korea as an Intelligence Officer in the Estimates Division, Directorate of Intelligence."

● During a brief stint as a freelance magazine writer, Campbell had articles published in such national publications as Coronet and The American Legion Magazine.

● As a copywriter for a Nashville advertising agency, Campbell worked on ads for such accounts as Kentucky Fried Chicken and Pizza Hut. His crowning achievement was keeping a straight face while working on full page newspaper ads for a high-rise mausoleum.

● Campbell was founder and editor for six years of Nashville Magazine, the city's first slick paper consumer monthly.

● Campbell served eighteen years as executive vice president of the Tennessee Association of Life Underwriters, a 4,000-member trade association. He was recognized by the National Association of Life Underwriters (now the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors) in 1980 with the C. Carney Smith Award as outstanding association executive of the year.

● Campbell holds the coveted CAE (Certified Association Executive) designation conferred by the American Society of Association Executives.

● After service in the Tennessee Air National Guard following the Korean War, Campbell retired from the Air Force Reserve as a lieutenant colonel.

● Campbell's first published book was titled The Best Is Yet To Be, a history of the first 150 years of City Road Chapel United Methodist Church in Madison, Tennessee. He has had ll mystery, thriller, and suspense novels published since then.

● Campbell's first wife died in 1998 from complications of Parkinson's Disease. He and his current wife share six children, 11 grandchildren, and 10 1/2 great-grandchildren.

Read an Ebook Week

This is Read an Ebook Week, and I have plenty to recommend for you. My two Post Cold War political thrillers started out at $3.99, but they've been reduced to $2.99. So break out your Kindle and order BEWARE THE JABBERWOCK and THE POKSU CONSPIRACY.

Poksu takes place in a part of the world that has always seemed mysterious, the Far East. I got my first taste of the area as a young first lieutenant in the Air Force. That was early 1952 and Japan was still digging its way out of the mire of World War II. I arrived at Yokohama on a troop ship and was transferred to a processing station. I had little chance to see the area with only a brief visit to the adjacent town. It had lots of broken English signs luring GI's into businesses.

After a few days and getting my assignment to the Directorate of Intelligence at Fifth Air Force Headquarters in Seoul, I lugged my B-4 bag and my portable typewriter onto the train and we headed southwest. One of the last stops before we crossed over to the island of Kyushu was the most memorable. I'll never forget hearing the conductor calling out, "Hiroshima, Hiroshima, Hiroshima!" This was a little more than six years after the A-bomb drop. We were in the city for only about fifteen minutes, but I got off and looked around the area. There was little visible of more than one story.

Our destination was the town of Fukuoka, home of an Air Force base from which I was flown to South Korea. My first view of Seoul was of a city with many buildings destroyed, streets in disrepair, other structures bearing holes left by bullets as well as artillery shells. Fifth Air Force was located in the former medical school of Seoul University. The main building housed offices. The DI was on the second floor, down the hall from the Joint Operations Center, which worked in cooperation with the Army, and the Tactical Air Control Center. I spent many off-duty hours in the TACC watching airmen move tokens representing aircraft, enemy and friendly, over a flat map of North Korea that covered most of the room. Using earphones scattered about the perimeter, I listened to radio transmissions from the pilots.

One of my Korean War mementos that sits on my desk is a brass plate with my name in embossed letters. It has a Korean scene on the back. The ingenious Koreans who made them used brass from artillery shells left by troops sweeping through the area. Djuring an R&R (Rest and Recuperation) visit to Japan, I brought back solid silver candelabra, beautiful cloisonne vases, and a set of Noritake china.

The Seoul that appears in The Poksu Conspiracy is the one I visited in 1987, a burgeoning metropolis that hardly resembled the town I knew in 1952-3. My protagonist, Burke Hill, also visits Chiangmai, Thailand, a unique city I toured during that Far East trip in 1987.

Scenes in  Beware the Jabberwock that take place in Hong Kong involve locations I also visited during my month-long Far Eastern tour of 1987.

Click these links to read about Beware the Jabberwock or The Poksu Conspiracy.

Remember the Fallen, Those Who Gave Their Best

Memorial Day is a time of remembrance. We honor those who gave their lives for their country, and remember those who gave their best in service to their country. I know I shouldn't be, but I always feel a bit embarrassed when somebody says "thanks for your service." I guess it's because, unlike so many others, I was never shot at.

I enlisted in the Army Reserve for Aviation Cadet training in June of 1943, just out of high school. I wouldn't turn eighteen until the end of November, so wasn't called to active duty until January. D-Day in Europe was nearly six months away, and troops were fighting their way north in Italy. American and British bombers blasted away at targets in Germany, particularly Berlin.

With the air war going well, the U.S. Army Air Forces had more aircrew officers in the pipeline than needed. So they distributed us Aviation Cadets around bases in the South. I started out at Moody Field, Valdosta, GA, where I wound up doing KP (peeling potatoes, scrubbing pots and pans) and helping build a firing range the German POW's refused to participate in. When a College Training Detachment class opened at Winthrop College, a girls' school in Rock Hill, SC, I headed off to the first phase of training.

When nothing else opened up after that, I headed south to Sumpter, SC and Shaw Field, where luckier cadets were learning to fly the BT-13, also known as te Vultee Vibrator. I was assigned to the Air Inspector's Office, where I spent many hours filing Army Regulations. A lieutenant in the office test-flew aircraft after major inspections, and I rode the student seat on some of these missions. That was the closest I came to learning to fly.

In the spring of 1945, I finally made it to the San Antonio Aviation Cadet Center (now called Lackland Air Force Base) for the next class in Preflight School. We studied subjects like meteorology, aircraft identification, and Morse Code. But, alas, when that was over, there were no openings for flight training. I joined other cadets at Randolph Field, on the other side of the city, to be guinea pigs in the School of Aviation Medicine. We performed such chores as getting physicals by candidates for designation as Flight Surgeons and trying out pills for airsickness. In the latter case, we took the pills then sat in swing-like gondolas where we were swung back and forth, higher and higher, to see how long it would take for us to get sick. I've never had a problem with airsickness, so I wasn't much help.

After a few weeks of that routine, another cadet and I were transferred to the Officers Mess, which also housed the VOQ, or Visiting Officers Quarters. We had rooms in the VOQ and worked in the office. After the barracks I had occupied, this was luxury. Built in the 1930's as the showplace of the new Army Air Corps, Randolph was known as the West Point of the Air. Its buildings were designed in Spanish Colonial Revival Style architecture, a far cry from those on bases thrown up during World War II.

It was here that I got the idea of becoming a writer. My fellow cadet had spent a year at Yale before joining the service. While chatting one day about what we'd do after the war, he confided that if he were to start college again, he'd study journalism. I'd never done any writing, but that stirred my interest. When news of the Hiroshima bombing came shortly after that, I sat at the office typewriter and started a story involving the A-bomb. When I was discharged about three months after the war ended, I set my sights on journalism school and enrolled at the University of Tennessee in January 1946.

While I don't think I contributed much in World War II, except my presence in uniform, I played a more significant role in the Korean War after getting an Air Force commission through ROTC. I served in the Estimates Division of the Directorate of Intelligence at Fifth Air Force Headquarters in Seoul. My job was to monitor enemy air activity and report on its consequences. I spoke on the subject at briefings for United Nations personnel and was awarded the Bronze Star Medal for meritorious service.

At one time I had the chance to join a group from the DI that journeyed up to the front lines, but for some reason I wasn't unable to make it. So I missed my best opportunity to get shot at.

But on this Memorial Day, I salute all those who served in whatever capacity. And I wish all the survivors a happy life. Mine certainly has been.

Down Memory Lane

I'm taking a trip down memory lane this weekend. It goes back sixty years to the middle of 1950. If you were around then, you probably remember that year's most significant event was the invasion of South Korea by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, better known as Communist North Korea, run by ruthless dictator Kim Il-Sung. It was the year following the end of the Berlin Airlift. The Cold War was just heating up.

I was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Air Force Reserve on graduation from the University of Tennessee journalism school the previous year. While working as a reporter for The Knoxville Journal, I heard about the organization of an Air National Guard unit designated the 119th Aircraft Control & Warning Squadron. It would be equipped with radar as part of new efforts to control the skies over the U.S. I joined the unit as its intelligence officer, a field that appealed to me. Newspaper reporters are always eager to be "in the know." It sounded like just the ticket. (That's me at right on R&R in Tokyo, 1951.)

The 119th AC&W Squadron was a small unit of around 100 men. We met at the National Guard Armory on Sutherland Avenue on the west side of town. The radar sets were a fascinating new toy, with small oscilloscopes that featured a radius line sweeping around as the odd-looking antenna rotated. It would pick up airplanes as small dots on the screen and track their progress across the sky.

As the first year of operations wound down, we held our first summer field training exercise in 1951. As best I can recall, it took place on somebody's farm where we camped out in tents. By this time, the war in Korea had begun to require a force buildup that entailed calling up National Guard and reserve units. We knew our time was coming.

Air Guard personnel could attend regular Air Force schools, so I put in for Intelligence School at Lowry Air Force Base in Denver. I hit the road in my little Plymouth on Labor Day weekend. I had never driven that far alone, and it was a memorable journey. This was before interstate highways, and those with a U.S. designation were usually well-paved but only two lanes wide. Traffic usually moved at the speed of the slowest driver.

At St. Louis I took U.S. 40 west, which generally followed the current route of I-70. I approached Kansas City in late afternoon and saw huge buildups of dark clouds across the Missouri River in Kansas. The road soon turned dark, as did everything within sight. Kansas looked like a mass of wheat fields with no people, no houses. Then came the thunderstorms. Searing, jagged streaks of lightning slammed into the ground around me, illuminating the fields in brief flashes of light. Thunder roared like explosions echoing in the night.

I decided I'd better find someplace to spend the night. That's when it dawned on my that this was Labor Day weekend. Tourist courts, the forerunner of motels, were scarce, and those I saw had NO VACANCY signs out. When I saw a cutoff to Manhattan, I headed into the small town. There I found an old hotel with a room available. The light was a single bulb hanging from the ceiling. I took it happily and slept through the remainder of the stormy night.

I drove on to Denver the next day and checked in at the base. I finished the intelligence course at the end of November and arrived back in Knoxville just in time to go on active duty with the 119th. A few months later I was on my way to Korea and Headquarters Fifth Air Force in Seoul, my home for the next year.

I'll be recalling those days this weekend as the 119th Command & Control Squadron (a linear descendant of the AC&W unit) holds a 60th Anniversary Celebration. I'm told there will be at least two other charter members of the organization there. Plus, I'm sure, lots of other oldtimers. It should be a fun event.

Getting Celebrity Status

I remember back when a 60th anniversary of anything seemed like a really big deal. That was before my calendar ramped up to its current lofty status. However, I now find that it could make me something of a celebrity.

I got a call last week from an airman with the 119th Command & Control Squadron of the Tennessee Air National Guard at McGhee-Tyson Air National Guard Base in Knoxville. He said he was looking for former Lieutenant Chester Campbell. I admitted that was me. He said the 119th Squadron planned a 60th Anniversary celebration at the base on August 7. They would be delighted if I could come.

I hadn't heard of the 119th in years and wasn't aware that it still existed. I joined the unit in the fall of 1950, shortly after it was organized.  At that time it was known as the 119th Aircraft Control & Warning (AC&W) Squadron, a radar outfit. Radar was just coming into its own as an air defense weapon after its development during World War II. I didn't k now much about radar, except that it had a line that swept around a small screen and picked up blips that could be identified as aircraft.

Since I was a newspaper reporter with a monstrous curiosity, they slotted me into the Intelligence Officer position. When I take on a new subject, I always start with plenty of research, and I quickly found the intelligence field fascinating. Being an insider is always fun, and my "secret" security clearance made me privy to a lot of inside information (it was later upgraded to "top secret").

Another event occurred halfway around the world at about the same time. North Korea sent its troops across the DMZ into South Korea, starting a conflict that hasn't been fully resolved yet. By the following year, the U.S. was fully engaged in the war and reserves were being called up. We knew our time was coming. Not wanted to be caught short, I applied for and was admitted to the Air Force Intelligence School at Lowry Air Force Base in Denver. I got back to Knoxville just in time to be called to active duty with the 119th. We were promptly dispatched to Otis AFB on Cape Cod. For me, that didn't last long, as they began picking out officers to send overseas as replacements. I wound  up in the Estimates Division of the Directorate of Intelligence at Hq 5th Air Force in Seoul.

But back to the anniversary. The young airman called a few days later with more information and said so far I was the only original member of the unit they had found. I'm sure there must be more, and hopefully they'll be located before August. But at the moment, it looks like I'm the celebrity.

I get a little antsy when people start thanking me for my service. I didn't fire a gun or drop a bomb, and nobody shot at me. True, I got a nice medal for meritorious service in monitoring enemy air activity and lecturing on it to United Nations personnel visiting the headquarters. But I didn't do anything any other concerned American would have done. I served willingly and would do it again, though I doubt they'd be interested in a gray-haired old guy now. The people I admire are the young men and women who are doing their best in Iraq and Afghanistan and other hot spots around the world. They're my heroes.

Still, it'll be interesting to reminisce on the fifties when I get to Knoxville in August.

Headed for the war zone in Korea, 1952

Today is Nostalgia Thursday. I’ve been looking through a packet of old Air Mail letters (remember air mail—the envelopes have alternating red and blue stripes around the edges?) that I sent home to my fiancee from Korea. The first one was written “about 300 nautical miles at sea” on Friday, May 9, 1952. We had shipped out of San Francisco the previous day, which would have been a Thursday 57 years ago.

The letter starts out:

“I’m writing from the forward sun deck of the USNS Gen. W. F. Hase, located according to my calculations as above. The sun is beaming down brightly from about 15 degrees to the left of directly overhead. Sitting here it feels very warm, mainly because I’m sheltered by a bulkhead that comes up about even with the top of my head. The wind is flapping the paper around in my typewriter. It’s pretty cold if you stand where you catch the full force of it. I’ve got my blue pants and jacket on, plus my topcoat. I’m writing from a half-reclining position in a deck chair.

“This is about the bluest water I ever hope to see. Hm, the PA system just clanged five bells, which means 1030. The ship is rocking gently, the water isn’t very rough, not so bad as it was last night anyway. I’m looking toward the aft (rear) of the ship, and there are a few little shaggy cumulus clouds around the horizon. I can’t see directly behind because of a stack of life rafts and part of the superstructure, but a little while ago there were two albatross (or albatrosses) flying around back there. We lost the sea gulls last night. They don’t fly out too far. The albatross, if you remember, is what not to shoot unless you want to end up like the Ancient Mariner. Personally, I got nothing to shoot one with anyway.”

I wasn’t issued a gun until I got to Korea. A bulky Army .45. I carried the thing for a year and never fired it. Stationed at 5th Air Force Headquarters in Seoul, I couldn’t find much to shoot at. The rats weren’t all that big. I’m copying the letter as written, without any editing. I wasn’t concerned with writing style at the time. I had been working for a newspaper the past four years, and we had a copy desk to take care of editing chores. My letter continued:

“To get back to the beginning, we departed from Camp Stoneman yesterday about 8 a.m. I didn’t know for sure whether we were going anywhere or not at first, for we got on the bus and it promptly broke down. So they loaded us onto another one and took us a couple of miles over to what anybody else but the Army would call a ferry—they call it a “harbor boat.” There were two “harbor boats,” the Yerba Buena and San Leandro. The Air Force officers went on the former, with the latter all Army. Boy, I thought my arms would break off before I got to set down my bags. I figured I’d die before carrying them onto the ship, but luckily they had stewards to do that for us. Anyhow, the harbor boat took us down the river to San Francisco Bay, past Alcatraz where I took a picture, on over to Fort Mason, which is the Army docks at Frisco. There we found the Hase, the Red Cross with coffee and cookies and an Army band to serenade us as we left. Some of the other guys who’ve been over before say this isn’t a very big ship, but it’s the biggest I’ve been on anyway. I don’t know how many are on it, though I’ve heard around 3000. They say it carried as many as 6000 during the war [World War II], but I imagine they were pretty crowded. The officers have cabins, mine with 9 guys in it, some have 12. They are triple-deck bunks, and I got a lower. I slept very well last night. The troops are in compartments down below decks, I haven’t seen what sort of place it is. Each cabin has a wash basin, and there is an adjoining toilet and shower for each two cabins.”

The letter, typed on paper about the size of a trade paperback, is 16 pages long. It is written in continuous form with break headings to show the date, time, and approximate location for each entry. The last one shows “Thursday, May 22, 1952, 6:30 p.m., Approx. 200 miles from Japan.” I wrote it using the small, thin, metal-cased portable typewriter I wagged around the Far East. Unfortunately, I got rid of it a few years later. It would have been a nice antique now. As is the camera I took along, a boxy twin-lens Ciro-flex, which I still have.

The rest of this first entry in the letter didn’t include much excitement. Stuff like one of my cabin mates breaking out a bottle of Four Roses, which he proclaimed was “seasick medicine.” Liquor was forbidden aboard ship, of course. As was a lot of other things that went on. At one point during the day, the ship turned and the emergency lifeboat crew lowered Number 2 Boat. A short time later they returned. We figured somebody saw something and thought it might be a man overboard, but they brought nothing back.

In the letter I mentioned what we had to eat for lunch (baked ham, sweet potatoes, corn, a beet and onion salad, tomato soup, coffee and cake) and dinner’s highlight (braised tenderloin tips and some great banana cream pie). The USNS Hase was a civilian ship, not Navy. The officers ate in the same dining room as the crew, and they prepared sumptuous meals. I don’t remember how much I gained during the 15-day trip, but without much activity except walking around the deck, I’m sure I put on several pounds.

That first letter was postmarked May 24, 1952. I put two six-cent air mail stamps on it when I mailed it on arriving in Japan. I wrote “Free Air Mail” where the stamp would have been on the other letters, which came from Korea. I’ll do some more reminiscing about the Korean War on day soon. Stay tuned.