Twelve men from the Soviet Union on a scientific expedition to the remotest part of planet Earth, Antarctica, in 1961, found themselves on the horn of an incredible dilemma. One of their number, the expedition doctor, suddenly became acutely stricken with appendicitis. What to do? No one else was medically trained and outside medically help was thousands of kilometres away, the patient couldn’t be transported there and waiting would prove fatal. So the surgeon, Leonid Rogozov, did the only thing he could do to try to save his own life…as mind-numbingly inconceivable as it sounds he operated on himself!
Novolazarevskaya Station, Antarctica, in winter (Photo: Sky News/Getty Images)
Auto-appendectomy was virtually unheard of, let alone performing such an impossibly dangerous procedure in a non-hospital environment, but Dr Rogozov rolled the dice. Firstly, he planned the operation systematically and meticulously (despite being in agonising pain), choosing two members of the expedition to be his surgical assistants, their roles were to hand him surgical instruments and hold a mirror to avail him of a view of his abdomen. The degree to which he prepared the operation exceptionally well can be seen in that he had the foresight to assign a third man to be present in the makeshift operating “theatre” in the event that one of the assistants fainted. As Rogozov needed to stay conscious he submitted only to a local anaesthetic and proceeded slowly in excruciating pain. Finding the inverted view of the mirror more a hinderance than an aid he dispensed with it and operated instead by touch with his bare hands.
The Soviet Union’s pioneering auto-appendectomy (Source: Vladislav Rogozov)
Somehow after nearly two hours the doctor succeeded in removing the offending appendix (while noting that its gangrenous appearance indicated it in all likelihood would burst the following day). Operation successfully completed, Rogozov stitched up his gaping wound and even had the presence of mind to instruct the assistants on how to wash the instruments properly and hygienically clean the room, before finally allowing himself a dose of antibiotics and sleeping tablets to induce sleep. After just two weeks rest the extraordinary doctor was, true to form, back at work. Truly remarkable, real Ripley’s “believe it or not” sort of stuff! [Sara Lentati, “The man who cut out his own appendix”, BBC, 05-May-2015, www.bbc.com].
Dr Rogozov recuperating after the operation (Source: Vladislav Rogozov)
The Antarctic ordeal wasn’t entirely over for Dr Rogozov. Mission completed, the expedition was meant to be picked up by a Soviet vessel about 12 months after the doctor’s self-appendectomy, however exceptionally bad weather and thick sea ice prevented it from getting close enough. Consequently there was a further lengthy delay before all the explorers were eventually evacuated by single-engine aircraft, a distinctly hairy manoeuvre in the treacherous polar conditions. Back in the USSR Leonid Rogozov was hailed as a hero of the Motherland and honoured with the Order of the Red Banner of Labour, although the good doctor did his utmost to shun the huge publicity focused on him, preferring simply to return to his medical clinic work in Leningrad.
Leonid I Rogozov in happier times during his Antarctic stay (Source: Vladislav Rogozov)
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Footnote: As a consequence of the 1961 Soviet expedition’s medical quasi-catastrophe, several countries including Australia made appendectomies mandatory for Antarctic explorers about to embark on an expedition to the farthest southern continent.
The United States’ belated entry into the global fight against German Nazism and its Axis partners and the Allies’ strategy of “Germany First” had the consequence of seeing some 1.5 million American troops moving through the United Kingdom between January 1942 and December 1945. This aggregation of forces personnel included 150,000 black American troops (some sources put the figure at 240,000).
This development was to prove problematic both for the US military and its British host as the American armed forces maintained a strict policy of segregation of its personnel…White and African-American servicemen and women served in separate regiments, lived and ate in separate quarters and did not generally mix even in combat situations𝓪. Black servicemen were usually barred from combat roles𝓫 and utilised primarily in support or supply roles in the war (driving trucks, engineering works, catering, etc) [‘“They treated us royally”? Black Americans in Britain during WW2’, Imperial War Museums, (Emily Charles), www.imperialwarmuseums.org.uk].
An African-American regiment seeking directions from an English “bobby” (source: Channel 4)
Meeting American expectations of a divided army: The dilemma was more acute for the Brits, Churchill had tirelessly courted Roosevelt with the objective of getting the US to intervene in the conflict on the allies’ side, Britain needed Washington’s military involvement and it needed America to bankroll the crippling cost of waging the escalating world war. The thorn in the side for Churchill was that American troops coming to the UK brought with them the US’ “Jim Crow” racial discrimination system which the American military was uncompromisingly wed to𝓬. A recent BBC documentary, Churchill: Britain’s Secret Apartheid, explores how the Conservative war-time government calculatingly turned a blind eye to the Americans’ discriminatory practice towards its own citizens (a practice which Britain itself would not countenance). And yet Britain and its Allies were fighting a war of the highest stakes against Hitler, for freedom from totalitarian dictatorship [‘Channel 4 Examines UK’s ‘Secret Apartheid’ during WWII’, sphere abacus, 07-Oct-2024, www.sphere-abacus’s.com]. The irony of this contradiction was certainly not lost on the African-American servicemen and women stationed in Britain.
The Anglo–American special relationship:With the Churchill government intent on consolidating a “special relationship” with the US, in characteristically British fashion it settled for compromise, it “wouldn’t enforce the US’s extreme race policy, but wouldn’t ask any awkward questions about it either” [‘Churchill: Britain’s Secret Apartheid, review: clickbait title masks a moving wartime story’, Anita Singh, Telegraph, 19-Oct-2024, www.telegraph.co.uk]. Britain acquiesced to Washington’s insistence on segregation but did so covertly, although Churchill biographer Baron Roberts of Belgravia contends that the British prime minister’s 1942 war cabinet comment that Britain would not assist the US Army in enforcing the segregation policy exonerates the Churchill government of collusion (sphere abacus). British soft-pedaling extended to mollifying American sensitivities by officially encouraging Britons in towns where Black soldiers were barracked not to get “too friendly” with them (Charles).
PM Winston Churchill (photo: PA)
Grass roots community support: Thus officially sanctioned, the prejudicial attitudes of White soldiers and officers (and military police) towards their Black countrymen in Britain continued to be given voice. What particularly inflamed the ire of White troops and led to violent clashes between the two groups was the sight of coloured servicemen fraternising and dancing with and enjoying the romantic company of local (white) English women. In fact, despite their government’s appeasing of the US, its failure to object to the colour bar in Britain thus perpetuating the inequality of Black troops, the ordinary people of the UK in the main took a much more positive and accepting view of the Black GIs and airmen (further enraging bigoted White servicemen). A 1943 poll in the UK indicated that the majority of British people opposed segregation [‘The Second World War, 1935 to 1945: Segregation’, RAF Museum, www.rafmuseum.org.uk]. Many Britons during the US occupation voiced a preference for the usually good-mannered Black servicemen over their entitled White counterparts.
Black GIs in rural England (photo: David E. Scherman/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty)
Battle of Bamber Bridge:A pitched “battle” between a Black truck regiment and White MPs occurred in this small Lancashire village in 1943, the prolonged exchange of fire between the two groups resulted in one Black soldier being killed and several injured. The catalyst of the violent confrontation was the action of racist White officers who tried to coerce the three pubs in Bamber Bridge into serving whites only, this incident coming closely on top of news of a race riot back home in Detroit which had heightened tensions between the two groups of serving personnel in England. White prejudice was reinforced in the way the confrontation was dealt with by the top brass…the US military command in England chose to view the incident as an act of mutiny on the part of the Black soldiers and 30 of those involved were charged, convicted and court-martialled, whereas none of the White MPs were charged. Later in 1943 there was another inter-racial shootout between African-American and White soldiers stationed in Launceston, Cornwall. Again the trigger was attempts to exclude Black servicemen from the market town’s pubs and again the American military identified the offending party as the Black GIs, characterising them as “mutineers”. At the court-martial proceedings the Black Bamber Bridge defendants aired grievances which make clear their status in Uncle Sam’s army was that of second-class soldiers – compared to white troops they were given poor food, forced to sleep in their trucks when stopped at White bases and they were the victims of military police harassment for minor transgressions which were typically ignored for White GIs [‘UK village marks struggle against US Army racism in World War II’, Danica Kirka, AP, 24-June-2023, www.apnews.com].
Park Street, scene of the Bristol riot, 1944
War-time clashes between White and Black American military personnel weren’t confined to England…there were physical altercations between the two groups in Wales where many Black GIs were stationed at the ports, assigned to work as manual labourers. Blacks were also employed as labourers at the docks in nearby Bristol (west country England) under the supervision of less competent White officers. The city’s worse disturbance, known as the Park Street Riot (July 1944), escalated after heavy-handed attempts by White MPs to discipline the coloured soldiers, resulting in one White MP being stabbed, a Black GI killed and several wounded in the fracas.
The sight of inter-racial couples dancing together, even if in Britain and involving non-American women, was enough to enrage the more bigoted of White American servicemen (source: Gregory S. Cooke Collection)
𝓪 the US Army didn’t end segregation in the ranks until 1948
𝓫 those Black troops who volunteered for combat roles often had to relinquish their rank and take a pay cut…”the Army did not want a Black sergeant commanding a White private” [‘This WWII battle wasn’t against Nazis. It was between Black and white GIs in England’, Lauren Frayer & Fatima Al-Kassab, NPR, 21-Jun-2023, www.npr.org].
𝓬 the British Foreign Office had initially tried to persuade the US not to send Black troops on the grounds that it would create tensions but Washington ignored the request
The post-independence relationship of India and Pakistan has been characterised by ongoing tensions, mutual suspicions and a sequence of short wars involving the sovereign state successors to the British Raj𖤓. At the forefront of this regional disharmony has been Jammu and Kashmir (J & K), the greater part of the area controversially awarded to Hindu-dominated India in the 1947 Partition of the Subcontinent but populated by a Muslim majority.
Kargil: 8,780 ft above sea level
Advancing by stealth across the disputed boundary: The most recent of these short-lived, episodic wars occurred in 1999 in Kargil in the remote union territory of Ladakh. Faced with the frustration of India holding the dominant hand in the disputed Kashmir region and unwilling to consider any alterations the Line of Control (LoC)𖦹, Pakistan opted for a bold if brash strategy. “Infiltrators” from the Pakistan side, crossed the LoC and took hold of Indian positions in the inhospitable glaciated terrain of Kargil, initially undetected by the Indian command. Alerted to the incursion, the Indian military unleashed a counteroffensive and over two months of fighting drove the Pakistanis back onto their side. Islamabad first sought to explain the military incursion as the work solely of Mujahideen “freedom fighters”, but this deception was quickly exposed with Pakistan paramilitary involvement discovered to be central to the military operation❖.
Kargil and Kashmir (image: insightsonindia.com)
Islamabad’s motives for the act of aggression taken by what Indian media termed “rogue army” elements, seem to have been severalfold. The strategic plan was to cut India’s communication lines in Kashmir between Srinagar and Leh. Pakistan was probably also motivated by a desire to regain lost honour for earlier military reversals at India’s hands, especially the Indian army’s 1984 seizure of Siachen Glacier and the crushing defeat in the 1971 war (Liberation of East Pakistan). Islamabad hoped that the proactive move might also prove a fillip for the flagging Pakistani insurgency movement in Kashmir [RAGHAVAN, SRINATH. Review of Dissecting the Kargil Conflict, by Peter Lavoy. Economic and Political Weekly 45, no. 44/45 (2010): 29–31. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20787524]. Essentially, Pakistan’s intent was to create a crisis in Kashmir with the aim of forcing New Delhi to sit down to negotiations and finally settle the Kashmir imbroglio.
Pakistani soldiers in snow-capped Kargil (source: au.pinterest.com)
Strategic miscalculation:The upshot for Islamabad was pretty disastrous, the status quo remained in New Delhi’s favour, strategically Pakistan failed to hold its advance position into enemy territory and found itself diplomatically isolated by its action…most of the international powers, including its ally China, criticised Pakistan for what some observers saw as its “reckless”, “adventurist”, “risk–adverse” behaviour. [Tellis, Ashley J., et al. “THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE KARGIL CRISIS.” Limited Conflicts Under the Nuclear Umbrella: Indian and Pakistani Lessons from the Kargil Crisis, 1st ed., RAND Corporation, 2001, pp. 5–28. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7249/mr1450usca.8. Accessed 15 Nov. 2024]. This generally-held perception of Pakistan resorting to intemperate action allowed India to turn the information war in the Kargil conflict into a diplomatic victory for New Delhi.
Pakistan, First Islamic state to join the nuclear club (source: Topcity–1)
Spectre of the nuclear option: While the brief Kargil War was limited to a low intensity conflict, the potential was there for it to escalate into an expanded conventional war, and most alarmingly, into a nuclear confrontation. The possibility of this happening existed because a year prior to Kargil, in 1998, Pakistan joined India as the second South Asian state to attain nuclear weapon capacity. This became more acutely critical to the international community during the war when, in response to India’s massive build-up of military arms in Kargil-Dras sector, Pakistan foreign secretary Ahmed hinted that the country might resort to using nuclear weapons. Islamabad may have only produced the nuclear card as a deterrent to an Indian counter-thrust, nonetheless Pakistan Prime Minister Sharif was clearly engaging in nuclear brinkmanship – by moving nuclear warheads towards the border (for which he was roundly rebuked by US President Clinton) [‘India and Pakistan Fought in 1999. Why Didn’t It Go Nuclear?’, Sébastien Roblin, The National Interest, 14-June-2021, www.nationalinterest.org].
Indian soldiers celebrate victory in the Kargil War (photo: business–standard.com)
No let-up for the troubled Kashmiris: Although there hasn’t been any new wars in Jammu & Kashmir since 1999, tensions and conflicts have continued virtually unabated since then. In 2019 there were troop clashes across the de facto border following Pakistani Islamist terrorist attacks. With Prime Minister Modi’s BJP Hindu nationalist regime committed to integrating J & K, an administrative rearrangement of the territory saw it lose its autonomy and be downgraded in status. Civil and political rights of the majority Muslim population have been eroded and Indian security forces are frequently accused of human rights violations. Separatist and jihadist militants continue to wage a protracted insurgency against the authorities [‘Indian Kashmir’, Freedom in the World 2024, https://freedomhouse.org].
Heavy Indian army presence in Kashmir fuelling Pakistani resentment (photo: pakistanpolitico.com)
Postscript: Atlantique IncidentAfter fighting in Kargil ceased in July 1999 there was no easing of Indo–Pakistani tensions. Just one month later the Indian airforce shot down a Pakistan navy plane in the Rann of Kutch (border land between Pakistan’s Sindh province and Western India’s Kutch district), accused of violating the former’s air space. The matter dragged out with both sides blaming each other and a failed international court appeal, leading to a further deterioration in the ruptured relationship.
Rann of Kutch, site of Atlantique Incident (Sir Creek) location of a second long-running Ind–Pak border dispute
𖤓 1947–48, 1965, 1971, 1999
𖦹 the temporary border separating the two countries in the Himalayas region
❖ in so doing it breached the Simla Agreement (1972) between the two neighbours
The popularity of Earl Derr Biggers’ Chinese detective creation Charlie Chan triggered a demand for this kind of Asian–American mystery crime fiction, paving the way for a spinoff into a profitable movie series. Biggers’ early death in 1933 after publishing just five Chan books left a void in fiction that other writers were not slow to try to fill. Encouraged by the editor of the Saturday Evening Post, which had serialised the Charlie Chan books, author John P Marquand created his notion of an Asian “detective” hero who triumphs in white society, Mr Moto. Mr Moto is Japanese, quiet, small and seemingly meek of nature, like Charlie Chan he roams the globe solving crimes and exposing murderers. Unlike Chan he uses ju-jitsu as well as brains to overcome and apprehend the bad guys.
Marquand eventually completed six novels centring around the Japanese secret agent/sleuth – Your Turn, Mr. Moto, Thank You, Mr. Moto, Think Fast, Mr. Moto, Mr. Moto is So Sorry, Last Laugh, Mr. Moto (all in the 1930s) and Right You Are, Mr. Moto (1957). 20th Century Fox bought the films rights (as they had with the Charlie Chan novels), and casting Hungarian-American actor Peter Lorre as the Japanese spy Moto🅐, rapidly made eight publicly well-received B-features in two years – Think Fast, Mr. Moto, Thank You, Mr. Moto,Mr. Motor’s Gamble, Mr. Moto Takes a Chance, Mysterious Mr. Moto, Mr. Moto’s Last Warning, Mr. Moto in Danger Island and Mr. Moto Takes a Vacation (the series was variously set in Hawaii, Mongolia, Peking, Cambodia/Siam, Egypt, Devil’s Island, Puerto Rico, at sea, San Francisco and other locations in the US).
Your Turn, Mr. Moto: Book and movie The film is only loosely based on the original novel, retaining only some of the key characters like American Tom Nelson and Prince Tung, introduces new characters and makes the quest for the ancient Chinese scrolls a more central element than in the novel where it is subordinated to the question of Japo–Chinese relations🅑.
Apart from some overlap of titles there are big differences between the books and the movies. One of the most conspicuous is Mr Moto’s presence in the stories. In Marquand’s novels, the character of Mr Moto goes missing for large parts of the books (though he’s always actively working towards his objectives “off-stage”)…meanwhile attention switches to the male (American) protagonist who finds himself in trouble of some kind or other🅒. Moto returns to intervene at a crucial moment, the American is saved and finds redemption (which is the key to the plot). In the films by contrast, Mr Moto tends to “fill the screen and animate the whole series”. In the books Moto is “I.A. Moto”, a secret agent working for the imperial Japanese government, but in the films he is presented as “Kentaro Moto” (as his printed business card states), an Interpol agent. Moreover the two mediums craft quite different types of crime stories, the novels were international espionage adventures which Hollywood turned into formulaic detective stories on the screen, [Schneider, Michael A. “Mr. Moto: Improbable International Man of Mystery.” The Journal of American-East Asian Relations, vol. 22, no. 1, 2015, pp. 7–16. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43898402. Accessed 5 Nov. 2024].
Marquand’s No Hero (1935)
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Mr Moto’s talents don’t stop at crime solving. He’s also a polymath, polyglot, art connoisseur, a graduate of Stanford University, amateur archaeologist and importer–exporter on the side. In some of these roles he demonstrates his special flair for effecting disguise, a ploy he uses to deflect suspicion from himself, blending in to exotic locales while undertaking dangerous spying assignments [‘Observations on Film Art: Charlie, Meet Kentaro’, Kristin Thompson & David Bordwell; David Bordwell’s website on cinema, 16-Mar-2007, www.davidbordwell.net; “‘Asian Detectives’. An Overview’, Philippa Gates, Crime Culture, www.crimeculture.com].
Mr Moto in clownface (“Mr. Moto’s Last Warning”)
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The Charlie Chan nexus: With two highly bankable screen detectives at its disposal Fox recognised the value of cross-promotion when the opportunity arose. The 1938 Moto movie Mr. Moto’s Gamble was originally meant to be a Warner Oland-starring Charlie Chan feature, however Oland’s ill-health and untimely death squashed those plans. Fox substituted Mr. Moto’s Gamble for the canned Chan movie and the producers kept Oland’s co-star Keye Luke in his No. 1 son role opposition Lorre this time, even allowing Mr Moto to politely inquire with Lee Chan (Luke) as to his honourable father’s health.
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Moto, genial but ruthless: Irrespective of the connexions and references between Charlie Chan and Kentaro Moto, Lorre’s off-centre sense of humour ensures that on screen Moto is “no Chan clone”. Although Moto, like Chan, employs logic and deduction in his policing methods and is quiet, meek exceedingly polite in public dealings (and a milk drinker no less!), he is also very much a man of action, disposing of physical threats to him with his uncompromising ju-jitsu prowess…in the case of the story’s murderer, once revealed, Moto customarily dispenses with the need for trial, having no qualms about liquidating him with 007-like utter ruthlessness, something Chan with his high moral code would never contemplate (Gates).
Moto’s alpha side (“Think Fast, Mr. Moto”)
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Mr Moto‘s personal side is as shadowy as his profession, to the audience it’s a blank slate. He has no family and no love life and his only companion is his cat. The only hint of a possible romance is his liaison with Lela (or Lotus) Liu (Lotus Long) in Think Fast, Mr. Moto and Mysterious Mr. Moto, but she turns out to be an agent like him and their attachment seems to be more a matter of working together to solve the case. Moto is a “lone wolf” when investigating cases, working solo without assistants. Occasionally he does ally with a self-appointed sidekick—usually a naive or gormless American or English idiot—who sometimes inadvertently unearths crucial evidence but as always it’s Mr Moto who unravels the mystery.
”Them Nipponese sure are peculiar birds”: Mr Moto, a Japanese man in 1930s America, is inevitably exposed in the stories to the casual racism of various people he meets, but the prejudice he cops seems more overt than the more subtle racist slurs DI Chan is subjected to. Possibly, this was a reflection of growing pro-Chinese feelings in America then in the wake of unremitting Japanese aggression against China in Manchuria. Moto, unfazed by the jibes, manages to turn the racism back on the perpetrators without their realising it…though he speaks perfectly fluent English he sometimes pretends to indulge their expectations of the stereotypical Asian: “Ah, so!!! Suiting you?”, he mocks in his singsong repartee manner 🅓 (Thompson & Bordwell).
Versatile Mr Moto turns his hand (and voice) to ventriloquism (Mr. Moto’s Last Warning)
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What makes Lorre’s star turn as the mysterious Japanese secret agent so good is that he plays the role absolutely tongue-in-cheek and with considerable charm [‘A Guide to the Mr Moto Films’, Charles P. Mitchell, Classic Images,www.webarchive.org]. Although I wonder if Moto’s ever-smiling, ultra-polite, insufferable smugness with gleaming teeth while correcting lesser mortals as to the error of the misconceptions didn’t start to grate with some movie-watchers after a while?
“Mr Moto…the foxiest detective of them all!!!“
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As the series continued the film storylines and situations predictably became more formulaic. After eight features Peter Lorre called it quits, seeking a release from his Mr Moto contract. The Moto sub-genre was still very popular at the box office but it’s probable that Lorre’s concern was that he was being typecast again as Moto (having previously been stereotyped as a psycho killer), which he felt was limiting his choices of different parts (Gates).
Footnote: Where did Marquand get his inspiration for the character of Mr Moto? Marquand undertook a research tour of the Orient in 1934 to gather material for his Asian detective project. While in Japan he aroused the suspicions of a short, exceedingly polite police detective who started shadowing the American author on his journeys. Eventually the Japanese detective, realising that Marquand was no threat to the country, stopped tailing him. This chance encounter provided Marquand with the spark for the character of Moto.
Pearl Harbour effectively killed off novels for the American market about Japanese spies but Marquand did write a final “Mr Moto” after a lapse of nearly 20 years: a Cold War espionage thriller “Right You Are” with American agents hunting down communist infiltrators in Tokyo
🅐 leaving the series and Lorre open to retrospective criticism for engaging in “Yellowface”, although Moto hasn’t attracted the ire of modern critics to the same extent as the Charlie Chan series has for the steady stream of white actors who have portrayed the Chinese super-detective up until as recently as 1981 – see previous post ‘Charlie Chan, Murder Mystery-Buster Extraordinaire: A Positive Asian Stereotype or an Oriental “Uncle Tom”?’, (29 October 2024)
🅑 Marquand’s focus in the books is on the clash of cultures, European/American vs Oriental (Japanese/Chinese), to a much greater degree that the films
🅒 the first book, Your Turn, Mr. Moto, was originally titled No Hero, a reference to another character, not Moto
