Chapter 5, Apostolic Way, Change of Heart, Part 1

[rthstewart]

Chapter 5, Change of Heart, Part 1 is finally posted.  A huge thanks to snacky  who helped with some invaluable editorial advice. 

And so we return to the non-linear point of view of Asim bin Kalil and being moving away from the visions of The Dawn Treader to other things.  Some of this is a bit repetitive (but a lot less so than it was, thanks Snacky).

Also, we meet here and then in much greater detail in the next chapter, Col. Tom Clark, his son, Jack, and their housekeeper, Ruby.  It bears noting that there is an important commander in the Operation Torch planning, Major General Mark Clarke -- he has no relation to Tom.

A few notes. 
The details of the Torch planning were from here, and some other places.  The information about Bletchley Park operations comes from this book, which was on my shelf until I managed to leave it on an airplane. 

The "Maudlin and Monstrous Pile" that housed the codebreakers, the Bletchley Park mansion, is described in hilarious architectural detail here.

Asim mentions the Long Range Desert Group and I just adore this picture of them, courtesy of the New Zealand government



As for the history of military chocolate in the US, I refer you to the Hershey website

Yum yum

Comments

[marbleglove.livejournal.com]

As much as I love this story and these characters--and Asim is awesome!awesome!awesome in this most recent chapter--it is increasingly the background research that truly amazes me about your writing. I'm learning all sorts of interesting new things in the most enjoyable way by following along in your research. Those D Rations crack me up.

[rthstewart.livejournal.com]

Thank you! The Wiki entry on the Ration D bars makes them sound horrible, whereas of course Hershey is very interested in making them sound great. I actually couldn't find anything about how much of the production was devoted to the Ration D and how much to regular chocolate. I'm assuming that those chocolate bars the American GIs were giving out to girls along with stockings and babies was not the ration bar but the real thing. The packs I saw at the WW2 Museum in New Orleans were real Hershey bars (I THINK). Thanks so much!