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| A Maritime Commission Victory Ship during WWII. |
THIS BOOK IS NO LONGER AVAILABLE.
IF YOUR INTERNET SEARCH BRINGS YOU TO AMAZON.COM, BARNES & NOBLES.COM,
OR GOOGLE, YOU MIGHT BE ABLE TO PURCHASE A USED COPY FROM OTHER MERCHANTS. A NEWLY REVISED EDITION OF THE NOVEL, HOWEVER,
IS AVAILABLE FROM THIS WEB SITE, UNTIL SUCH TIME AS IT BECOMES AVAILABLE AS A PUBLISHED NOVEL. IT IS IN MS WORD 97-2010
FORMAT, THOUGH WITHOUT ILLUSTRATIONS (PHOTOS). THE MANUSCRIPT OF 390 PAGES CAN BE EMAILED AS AN ATTACHMENT. THE PRICE IS $15.00
IN AMERICAN CURRENCY. PLEASE QUERY BY EMAIL LINK ABOVE. THANK YOU.
RATIONALE: This revised edition is necessary because the writer discovered more information on the subject that he would've
included in the original edition. That information wasn't available during the initial five years of research that he'd
put into it already. Therefore, to prevent the book from bloating itself on the inexhaustible wealth of data concerning
the Merchant Marine during World War II he limited himself to including it without comment, which contains the facts of the
press's shameful treatment of American merchant seaman during that period. The segment is the Appendix appearing on
page 381. He resisted also the temptation to edit the document, letting the few punctuation typos, the grammar, and
the tenor of the piece speak for the era in which the author and publisher wrote and edited it. Other
corrections in this edition are amplification of dialog and narration, deletion of questionable, though still factual scenes
and narrative due to some criticisms from well-respected sources, and to these persons he wishes to extend his sincere thanks. THEY GO TO SEA--The Story of an American Merchant Ship and the Battle
of the Atlantic in World War II
A Brief
Synopsis:
Underage for the Navy, young Ken Mason, impressionable and adventurous, enlists in the United
States Maritime Service and undergoes radio operator training during the summer after graduating from high school. He
is not yet 18.
For the past year and currently, Nazi U-boats in a feeding frenzy are sinking dozens of ships
up and down the US East Coast and far out to sea. Ken, whose father is a New York admiralty lawyer, has, in his father's words
"run away to sea," survives a convoy run across the Atlantic to England. He ships out again upon his return to New
York.
As the assemblage of ships disappears over the eastern horizon on its way to England, Ken Mason and
his shipmates must now face the U-boat menace in the bloody North Atlantic Ocean. This time his ship, however, damaged during
a storm, must drop out of the convoy, and return to Halifax, Nova Scotia, for repairs. But, forebodingly, the newly
launched SS Orion Victory is not alone. She is being stalked by U-218, in the deadly periscope crosshairs of
a submarine ace, Kapitänleutnant Walther Starken, better known to
the U.S. Navy's COMEASTSEAFRON as "Iron Cross Wally." Starken,
forebodingly, is pursuing not only Ken's crippled freighter but he's eager to achieve a higher goal: winning the Knights
Cross of the Iron Cross with the much coveted Eichenlaub or Oak Leaves for record tonnage sank. The question
then is, does he gain either, both, or none?
--------------------------------
Review by a columnist of a local newspaper:
"They
Go To Sea is not just another war story about a war that took place long ago, but an engaging novel about the lives of
these men, their loves, their families. It is enjoyable reading."
|
| World War II American Poster |
"They go to sea,
and back to sea, and back to sea again, until one wonders how it is possible to face the continued expectation of death or
long chances of survival. Those who have suffered the most seem the most anxious to get back to sea."
--January
1943 U.S. Government Report on Convoy Fatigue
|
| World War II American Poster |
Comparison of Merchant Marine Casualty Rate to Other Services
Merchant Marine: Serving 243,000, War Dead 9,497, Per Cent 3.90,
Ratio 1 in 26
Marine Corps: Serving 669,108, War Dead 19,733, Per Cent 2.94, Ratio 1 in 34
Army: Serving 11,268,000, War Dead 234,874, Per Cent 2.08, Ratio 1 in 48
Navy: Serving 4,183,466, War Dead 36,958,
Per Cent 0.88, Ratio 1 in 114
Coast Guard: Serving 242,093, War Dead 574, Per Cent 0.24, Ratio 1 in 421
Total: Serving
16,576,667, War Dead 295,790, Per Cent 1.78, Ratio 1 in 56
(Note: Figures and graph copyrighted US Maritime Service
Veterans at www.USMM.org)
|
| World War II British Poster |
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| World War II British Poster |
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| Maritime Commission T-2 tanker with crated planes on deck. |
| What Allied Seamen Faced At Sea: |
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| Armament on Deck of a U-boat |
Kriegsmarine Admiral Karl Dönitz's Famous Four
Imperatives For Sea Warfare:
1. All attempts to rescue members of ships that have been sunk, including
attempts to pick up swimmers, or to place food and water, will cease. The rescue of survivors contradicts the elementary
necessity of war for the destruction of enemy boats and their crew.
2. The order for the capture of captains
and chief engineers remain in force.
3. Survivors may only be rescued when interrogation may be of value
to the U-boat.
4. Be severe. Remember that in his bombing attacks on German cities the enemy has no
regard for women and children.
|
| Merchant ship boat drill in mid ocean |
| World War II North Atlantic Convoy |
|
| U.S. Army Air Force photo |
SOME KIND WORDS FOR THE AMERICAN, BRITISH, AND CANADIAN MERCHANT
SEAMEN:
President Franklin D. Roosevelt:
"The men of our American Merchant Marine have pushed through
despite the perils of the submarine, the dive-bomber, and the surface raider. They have returned voluntarily to their
jobs at sea again and again, because they realized that the lifelines to our battlefronts would be broken if they did not
carry out their vital part in this global war."
General Douglas MacArthur:
"I wish
to commend to you the valor of the merchant seamen participating with us in the liberation of the Philippines. With
us they have shared the heaviest enemy fire. On this island I have ordered them off their ships and into foxholes when
their ships became untenable targets of attack. At our side they have suffered in bloodshed and in death. The
caliber of efficiency and the courage they displayed in their part of the invasion of the Philippines marked their conduct
throughout the entire campaign in the southwest Pacific area. They have contributed tremendously to our success.
I hold no branch in higher esteem than the Merchant Marine."
Prime Minister Winston Churchill:
"Wonderful exertions have been made by our Navy and our Air Force...and, need I say, by the officers and men of
the Merchant Navy, who go out in all weathers and in the teeth of all dangers to fight for love of their native land for a
cause they comprehend and serve." Historian John Keegan:
"The 30,000 men of the British Merchant Navy who fell victim to the
U-boats between 1939 and 1945...[and]...their American, Dutch, Norwegian or Greek fellow mariners...stood nevertheless between
the Wehrmacht and the domination of the world." A Sailor Serving in a Royal Canadian Navy Corvette:
"We had great respect for the merchant
seamen. I think they were underestimated, especially now by the British public today, because they talk about the Battle of
Britain. Granted the pilots did a marvelous, marvelous job, but when you stop and think, how did they get the fuel across
to fly those planes, it was the merchant seamen. And, honestly, I think they're the bravest men out, the Merchant Navy."
|
| World War II Poster |
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| Author with Chief Abbot Gyoshu Oi (extreme left) and other priests and monks of Kencho Ji, Kamakura. |
THIS BOOK IS NO LONGER AVAILABLE. IF YOUR INTERNET SEARCH BRINGS YOU TO AMAZON.COM, BARNES
& NOBLES.COM, OR GOOGLE, YOU MIGHT BE ABLE TO PURCHASE A USED COPY FROM OTHER MERCHANTS. A NEWLY REVISED EDITION
OF THE NOVEL, HOWEVER, IS AVAILABLE FROM THIS WEB SITE UNTIL SUCH TIME AS IT BECOMES AVAILABLE AS A PUBLISHED NOVEL.
THE NEW TITLE IS: THE AMERICAN OCCUPATION OF JAPAN: A LOOK BACK. IT IS IN MS WORD 97-2010
FORMAT, THOUGH WITHOUT ILLUSTRATIONS (PHOTOS). THE MANUSCRIPT OF 380 PAGES CAN BE EMAILED AS AN ATTACHMENT. THE PRICE
IS $15.00 IN AMERICAN CURRENCY. PLEASE QUERY BY EMAIL LINK ABOVE. THANK YOU. RATIONALE: After
the author received many comments regarding the story line, plot, characters, and especially feedback directly pointing to
his "interpretation" of Zen and/or Buddhism, he decided to rewrite the entire 380 pages of the book. It seemed readers
did not appreciate the fierce and almost ferocious narrative and dialog of the ancient Chinese and Japanese Zen Masters that
directed the Zen practitioner to abjure all emotional attachments and concentrate solely on ZAZEN in order to solve KOANs
to attain to SATORI. What the critics read into these passages of prose, however, was that the AUTHOR was the person demanding
this strict adherence to ZAZEN, when, in actual fact, the ancient Zen Masters themselves demanded it. The author was simply
the messenger. Yet, some readers killed the messenger. Therefore, to set the record straight, he decided to tone down
the Zen masters' demand for blood, for indeed, an ancient Zen master did demand of his monks that if they ever met a Buddha,
they should kill him. Now just how do you think a pious, devout, mild-mannered Buddhist temple-goer would react to such a
demand? Not very well, one would imagine. It was these peaceful, lovely, gentle, caring, compassionate, sutra-chanting worshippers
who forced the writer to revise his novel, which, incidentally, he enjoyed doing. The amended novel, with its new title,
is rather apt. It conveys much more dramatically the background of the story action because, taking place during the occuptaion
of Japan by the U.S. Army, the reader now will become acquainted with how life was lived in Old Japan: not modern taxis but
jinriksha pulled by shabbily clothed Imperial Army veterans. No nifty business suits and ties or flashy dresses
but humbling kimono worn by men, women, and children alike. No fancy leather shoes but wooden geta. No paved streets in many
parts of towns and cities but earthen roads without traffic lights and drainage sewers. Speaking of which, the reader will
learn of the Night Soil collector, whose startling occupation shocks the sensibilities of the Western World, and which continues
to this day in ever-decreasing parts of New Nippon. And hovering above it all like the poisonous cloud of the atomic bomb
was the seeing, the smelling, the feeling, the touching, and the tasting of the appalling poverty and desparation of
the people whose ignominious defeat ground them into dust, making them bow deeper than usual, forcing them to avert your gaze. The
story, then, is really an attempt to portray to the present-day reader and seeker of the truth what Zen and Buddhism and Japanese
customs and mores were all about in a certain period of her history. That period was the AMERICAN OCCUPATION OF JAPAN 1945-1952.
| Jinriksha on the dock at Moji, Japan Sept. 1, 1949 |
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| Ship discharged maize. 3rd Mate in 'riksha. Photo by David Arturi, ship's Sparks. |
A Brief Synopsis: David Arturi portrays a mystical journey and a poignant love story in the epic new novel The Last of
All Desire. Based on the author’s own experiences, this is the story of young Ken Mason who sails the
Seven Seas in a state of disquietude at the end of World War II. He finds himself in a port city called Ryumachi in Kyushu
Island, Japan where he stumbles upon a Zen temple, a Zen master, and girl student with whom he falls in love. However, the
Japanese girl is to be married within the month to a banker’s son. This dilemma becomes the internal struggle that their
spiritual journeys must surmount. Some Reviews: "David Arturi obviously has an intimate knowledge of Japan...about
history, customs, atmosphere, daily living... He writes very well indeed, and fascinatingly."
--Dan Wickenden, Editor,
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. Publishers,
New York, N.Y.
"This book truly is
a labor of love, meticulously written, and surely something the author has cared about deeply."
--Eleanor S. Rawson, Executive Editor, David McKay Company, Inc. Publishers, New
York, N.Y.
"Mr. Arturi is quite skilled
in his character studies, and by playing out strong feelings against fixed social patterns he creates many interesting textual
qualities throughout. The first problem I detected...the Zen student is asked, apparently, to believe in a paradox: he must
study, yet his books are called worthless in teaching him what he needs to know. The author handles these episodes very charmingly
and knowingly." --Lambert Wilson,
A Complete Literary Service, New
York, N.Y.
"We've found the book delightful,
and its content compelling. Thanks for this novel, which has proved to be an especially enjoyable reading experience."
--Scott Meredith (Original) Literary Agency,
Inc. New York, N.Y.
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| Juniper Tree Planted in Kencho Ji From Seeds Carried From China By Rankei Doryu, 1253 A.D. |
| The 750th Anniversary of the Founding of Kencho Ji |
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| In center: Gyoshu's son Rev. Etsuo (r.), grandson Rev. Hirofumi (l.), and some family members. 2003 |
Sign posted at the entrance to Kotoku-in Ji, on which ground sits the famous bronze statue of Dai Butsu (Amidabha),
the Great Buddha of Kamakura, Japan:
STRAnGER, WHOSOEvER
THOu ART and whatsoever be thy creed, when thou enterest this sanctuary remember thou treadest upon ground hallowed
by the worship of ages. This is the temple of Buddha and the gate of the eternal and should therefore be entered with reverence.
| From THE DHAMMAPADA SUTRA |
|
Volition is all important. Our future depends on our present volition,
and our present state depends on our past volition. All that we are is the result of what we have thought; it is founded on
our thoughts; it is made up of our thoughts. If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him, as the wheel
follows the foot of the ox that draws the wagon. ---BUDDHA --Carus, Paul; Buddha; Bodhisattva,
Asvaghosha; Olcott, Henry; De La Valle-Poussin, Louise; Shaku, Soyen; Marks, Darryl; Muller, Max; Beal, Samuel (2010-11-04).
BUDDHISM and BUDDHIST TEACHINGS: Ultimate Collection of Texts For Beginners (Kindle Locations 4574-4576). Everlasting Flames
Publishing. Kindle Edition.
| Chief Abbot Gyoshu Oi, extreme left. Kamakura 1954 |
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| Author has visited with him during frequent ship's calls at Yokohama. |
| Celestial Princesses Dancing |
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| to Lure the Sun Goddess Out of Her Cave. |
| Torii at Hachima Gu (Shinto Shrine), Kamakura |
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| Located on Dankatsura "Cherry Blossom Tunnel Avenue" |
| Statue of Kuan Yin seen from train window. |
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| At Ofuna, between Yokohama & Kamakura. Photo by David Arturi |
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| Civil War Memorial Arch in Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn, NY. |
Click HERE to read sample pages from Google Book Search.
THE BELVEDERES OF BROOKLYN--
A Family's Attempt to Conquer the 1930s
Size: 6"x9"
340 Pages
22 Illustrations
THE AUTHOR'S THIRD OPUS is a stirring Italian-American novel that
is bold and honest in its treatment of detailing the years of America's Great Depression. It is also a virtual guided
tour through the wonders of the architecture and history of the former Dutch town of Breukelen, then becoming the City of
Brooklyn, and eventually one of the five boroughs of the City of New York. The entire story, based on some true incidents,
is, however, a fictional memoir, a stunning roman à clef, passionate in its themes, yet thought provoking,
engrossing, and volcanic.
Hard cover: $20.00 plus s/h - HURRY! ONLY 8 COPIES LEFT!
Soft cover: $15.00 plus s/h - End of inventory sale price!
---------------------------------------------- SYNOPSIS
The author, a loyal and loving Brooklynite, has written a novel celebrating the borough of his
birth, from the in depth descriptions of the Grand Army Plaza and the Battle of Long Island (in Brooklyn) in Prospect Park
to the Battle at Jamaica Pass, near present day Aqueduct racetrack; from the limestone mansions lining once-prestigious Bushwick
Avenue to the weekly amateur hours in the RKO Bushwick and Loew's Gates theaters on Broadway.
So
exact is his documentation of historical fact and events that the novel could properly be called a masterful example of roman
á clef, the definition of which we all know to mean that the writer bases his story on empiricism behind a veil of
fiction. But, in this author's case, the creativity flows more from his heart than from his intellect. The result
is a stunning emotional journey from childhood into adulthood, and one that helps us empathize with the bewilderment of the
four children of the title, including their bitterly socialistic father and vengeance-seeking stepmother who has sworn to
a vendetta in Little Italy. The story invokes the heartache of innocence lost--of dashed hopes--of abandonment--of dreams
destroyed.
Similar in varying degrees of intensity and poignancy to John Steinbeck's Grapes
of Wrath and Pietro Di Donato's Christ in Concrete, this tale of the struggling Belvederes depicts the challenges
confronting Italian-American immigrants struggling to overcome the odds placed before them to survive during the Depression
years of the 1930s. Remember:
The scaffolds are not safe,
for
the rich must ever profit more.
--Pietro Di Donato,
Christ in Concrete, 1939
The central character Adrian, a recently graduated parochial school boy shamelessly seduced by a beautiful widow neighbor,
develops into a tragic figure yet is elevated through classical and historical allusions in this coming of age novel.
He and his siblings have their American dreams, but, before attaining them, they have to wrestle with individual fears and
uncertainties.
That each of the Belvederes accomplishes their journey fulfilled, however,
must be a testament of human aspirations visualized then verbalized and gained. These separate pursuits are destined
to become factual for them--just as man is destined to progress toward fulfillment himself. --------------------------------
Following is a review by Dr. Patricia Wellington who is a retired English professor and freelance writer.
March
2, 2007
The Belvederes
of Brooklyn is David Arturi's tribute to the Brooklyn of his youth in the Depression-era 1930s. It is part memoir,
part fiction, but with few exceptions, he declines to tell us which is which. Though there's a huge cast of characters
representing a cross section of Brooklynites, two families dominate--the wealthy Vandermeers and the poor, blighted Belvederes.
Early in the novel
hedonistic widow Maureen Vandermeer, who preys on young boys her children's ages, has fixated on the younger Belvedere son,
Adrian, who bears a striking resemblance to the Roman Antinous, who was deified in his lifetime for his celebrated, breathtaking
beauty.
Interestingly, the history of the Belvedere family
mirrors Arturi's own as he tells us in "About the Author." Marius Belvedere leaves Italy for America hoping
to find a better life. But his wife Anna develops an inoperable brain tumor for which medical science at the time offers
little treatment.
At her deathbed, she asks her older son,
Rick, to get the family out of the city to a place of fresh air--perhaps the mountains. He is thwarted in his mission,
however, when Marius loses his job and is forced to put the four children--Paula, Rick, Adrian, and Linda--in Catholic orphanages.
Blaming America for his wife's death, he returns to Italy.
Six
years later, Marius returns to America to claim his abandoned children. He has recently married Claudia, an Italian-American
New Yorker. By then, they feel little loyalty toward him and plot their escapes from Brooklyn.
Arturi's Brooklyn is a sexy place, a sort of an X-rated A Tree Grows in Brooklyn,
full of fondling, "I'll show you mine if you show me yours," and explicit sex acts. Even the architecture, according to the author, encourages carnality: "She met him in the vestibule, which is
Brooklyn's secret sex chamber. Amorous adventures take place in there at night, from a hesitant first kiss between pre-teens
and the culmination of stand-up copulation. The tiled vestibule at midnight was an erotic sanctuary securely locked
between two doors."
Those
familiar with Brooklyn should delight in the many place names, yesteryear's close-knit neighborhoods of candy stores and parks,
nostalgic memorabilia, side trips in history, and well-placed old photographs corresponding to the content.
--------------------------------
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| The Madragone Head of Antinous 130 A.D. Marble. Louvre. Height 37". |
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| Roman Emperor P. Aelius Hadrianus 117-138 A.D. Patron of Antinous |
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| Congestion at Prospect Park Boat House, Brooklyn N.Y. 1945 |
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| Coney Island's Famous Wonder Wheel, Brooklyn, N.Y. 1940s |
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| Crowded Coney Island, est. 1,000,000 bathers, Brooklyn, N.Y. 1940s |
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From the Author:
Any resemblance between
the lives of the siblings mentioned earlier and the four Belvedere children in this fictional memoir is coincidental
only to the extent that a great deal of the depicted events must be attributed to the writer's lively imagination.
However, true episodes portrayed are not merely coincidental. They are, well, true.
When World War II swept
across the globe, the author enlisted in the Navy after graduating high school. Upon being discharged, he pursued his
career in maritime radiotelegraphy by going to sea in the U.S. Merchant Marine for more than four decades. And, as you
will see below, by visiting more than 100 countries and places where, in discussions with innumerable persons of various official
positions and dispositions, would return home to New York in shock and awe at the world's complexity.
What
you will read in this novel are factual and fictional episodes from his life in Brooklyn. It is just this method of
interpreting those life-altering events and one's reactions to them that prompted the writer to use a new phrase, Realistic
Fiction Writing in the 21st Century, that appears on this web site.
Stand upright, speak thy thought, declare
The Truth thou hast, that all may share
Be bold, proclaim
it everywhere.
They only live who dare.
--Editorial Masthead
of DAWN, Karachi, Pakistan's English language daily newpaper. .
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