Arthur Stratton

Arthur Mills Perce Stratton (1911 – 3 September 1975) was an American author and traveller. He was a playwright, a novelist, an OSS agent, a teacher in Turkey, and an assistant college professor in the US, before working for the CIA for about ten years and becoming a travel writer and biographer.

While serving with the American Field Service as a World War II ambulance driver, he was twice awarded the Croix de Guerre for bravery under fire, the first time on the Western Front, the second in North Africa.

Early life

Stratton was born in Brunswick, Maine, the son of Arthur Mills Stratton (1868–1916), a native of Portsea Island, Portsmouth, England, a music hall performer known as 'Arthur Rudd', by his marriage to Frances Cora Perce, which took place on 16 October 1902 in Kimberley, in what was then the Cape Colony. His mother, a soprano, who had been born in Baltimore in 1873, lived until 1954.Mark J. Warner, at familyorigins.com/users/w/a/r/Mark-J-Warner/ : "ARTHUR MILLS STRATTON was born on 21 JUN 1868 in PORTSEA ISLAND, PORTSMOUTH, HANTS. He died in 1916. He was a music hall performer, known as 'Arthur Rudd'. Parents: JOHN STRATTON and ELIZA LYDIA STYLES. He was married to FRANCES CORA PERCE on 16 OCT 1902 in KIMBERLY, SOUTH AFRICA... FRANCES CORA PERCE was born on 14 SEP 1873 in BALTIMORE, U.S.A. She died about 1954. She was a singer. She was married to ARTHUR MILLS STRATTON on 16 OCT 1902 in KIMBERLY, SOUTH AFRICA. Children were: ARTHUR MILLS STRATTON, BARBARA STRATTON... JOHN STRATTON Parents: CALEB STRATTON and ARABELLA HEWES. He was married to ELIZA LYDIA STYLES on 10 MAR 1868 in PORTSMOUTH, HANTS. Children were: ARTHUR MILLS STRATTON... CALEB STRATTON was born on 25 JUN 1809. He was buried on 22 JAN 1845 in PRINCES RISBOROUGH, BUCKS. He was married to ARABELLA HEWES on 22 JUN 1836 in PRINCES RISBOROUGH, BUCKS. Children were: JOHN STRATTON, ARTHUR STRATTON, CAROLINE STRATTON, CAROLINE STRATTON." Stratton's father was said to be of a family "impeccably Church and Army", while his mother was described as "American as can be, which means English, Scottish, French and New York State Dutch".From thumbnail biography of Stratton on dust cover of ''The Great Red Island'' (1964) Stratton's mother, the daughter of Colonel LeGrand W. Perce, a lawyer practising at the Chicago Bar, was one of six children and was described as "One of the most promising young singers of Chicago... Miss Perce has a pure, even soprano voice, of great range, clear, sweet quality and of more than usual power."

Stratton was educated at Bowdoin College in his hometown and at Columbia University's Graduate School,Herbert Ross Brown, '' Sills of Bowdoin: the life of Kenneth Charles Morton Sills, 1879-1954'' (1964), p. 333: "Undergraduates were impressed by the personal sacrifice of one young alumnus, Arthur Mills Stratton '35, who returned to the campus in November to recuperate from severe wounds suffered while driving an ambulance in France." Stratton graduated BS from Bowdoin in the class of 1935 and AM from Columbia.Bowdoin College, ''Report of the President'' (1940), p. 17

Life and career

In the 1930s, Stratton was a young playwright in New York, although without great success.

He was in France on the outbreak of the Second World War and joined the American Field Service as a volunteer. In 1940, as an ambulance driver in France, he was the first foreign volunteer to be decorated by the French Army during the war. The annual Report of the President of Bowdoin referred to the incident:

He was to receive the Croix de Guerre twice. In late April 1942, while serving with the Free French Forces in the Eighth Army commanded by Montgomery, he was very severely wounded, more than ten times, while trying to evacuate wounded soldiers from the trap laid by the German Army at Bir Hakeim in the Libyan Desert and was incapacitated from further duty. His act was seen as a feat of exceptional courage and he received his second medal. ''Free France'' magazine reported that "A. M. P. Stratton of Brunswick, Maine was wounded in the right leg and left arm while attempting to salvage a partially demolished ambulance." The ''Columbia alumni news'' noted that "ARTHUR M. STRATTON, '42AM (Bowdoin)... was wounded at Bir Hacheim and was awarded the Croix de Guerre with Palms by the Free French."

At that time, Stratton was a close friend of the publisher Arnold Gingrich, whose magazine ''Coronet'' reported

In November 1942, Stratton returned to Bowdoin College to recover from his wounds. After his recovery, he was recruited as an agent of the Office of Strategic Services and moved to Turkey, where he taught English at Robert College in Istanbul.John Freely, ''A History of Robert College: The American College for Girls and Bogazici University'', vol. 2 (2000), p. 76: "Last Friday we obtained a new teacher of English, Mr. Arthur M. P. Stratton of Bowdoin College, Columbia University Graduate School, and the American Field Service in the Middle East".

In 1948, he was back in Brunswick as an assistant professor of English at Bowdoin College, based at 234 Maine Street.Bowdoin College, ''Catalogue of Bowdoin College and the Medical School of Maine'' (1948)
p. 29
online The same year, he published a novel called ''Lord Love Us''.Lord Love Us
at openlibrary.org
at nytimes.com This was edited for Scribners by Burroughs Mitchell, a contemporary at Bowdoin.Burroughs Mitchell, ''The Education of an Editor'' (1980), p. 11: "The Bowdoin of my time could not compete with the class of 1825, which was the class of both Longfellow and Hawthorne, but several writers did emerge from among us. Lawrence Hall, who joined the Bowdoin English Department, was one; and Arthur Stratton, three of whose books I later edited at Scribners. In World War II, Stratton, an ambulance driver in France, was the first American to receive the ''Croix de Guerre''; he was later wounded at Bir Hakeim, in North Africa. He served in the OSS and then, for about ten years, in the CIA, which took him to Indochina, to India, and to unlikely places like Madagascar, increasing his odd store of erudition."

Stratton then worked for the Central Intelligence Agency for some ten years. In the course of this work, he travelled widely, returning to Turkey often and also living in India, Indochina, and Madagascar.

His first major book was ''One Man's India'' (1955),Marvin H. Harper,
One Man's India by Arthur Stratton, Review
' in Middle East Journal, vol. 10, no. 1 (Winter, 1956), pp. 92-93 while Madagascar was to inspire his second travel book, ''The Great Red Island'' (1964), a history of the country presented in the form of a biography weaving back and forth between the past and the present.
at madagascar-library.com

Stratton paid his second and last visit to Madagascar in 1958. His editor, Mitchell, later wrote of his travelling "to unlikely places like Madagascar, increasing his odd store of erudition". In 1964, he was living in Athens.

Reviewing his ''The Great Red Island'' in 1965, ''The Times'' said of him

In its review of ''The Great Red Island'', ''The Spectator'' drew attention to Stratton's description of a southeastern stretch of the island as "Almost as lovely as the Attic coast" and noted that "Mr Stratton celebrates Madagascar. A New Englander who, as a volunteer with the Free French, first saw the name Madagascar on a can of singe doing duty for corned beef at Bir Hakeim in 1942... Mr Stratton has a baroque turn of style that offers in the first few pages words like ' struthious,' 'rhipidistian', and 'xerophytic'.

His last major work to appear was a biography of the Ottoman architect Mimar Sinan, which when it was published in 1972 he dedicated "Chiefly to the Turks".

In 1973, a donation Stratton made to Bowdoin College was noted in the President's annual report. He died on 3 September 1975. In his memory, Barbara Stratton Bolling and Deborah S. Booker presented a collection of prints to the University of Missouri's Museum of Art and Archaeology, including work from Ethiopia, a lithographic portrait by Edvard Munch of the composer Frederick Delius, and comic art by Honoré Daumier.

In 1945, Stratton's sister Barbara had married Richard Walker Bolling, later a Democratic Congressman from Kansas City, Missouri, and chairman of the United States House Committee on Rules. Barbara Stratton had four children, one with Bolling and three by a previous marriage.

Major publications

*
*
*

Other publications

*Arthur Stratton, ''Brush Fire; a play in 3 acts'' (1936)
*Arthur Stratton, ''See While the City Sleeps. My next play; a play in 3 acts'' (1936)
*Arthur Mills Stratton, 'The Battle for the Sands: Ambulance at Bit Hacheim', in ''The Atlantic'' November 1942 issue (vol. 170, no. 5)
*A. M. P. Stratton, ''Lord Love Us'' (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1948, a novel)
*Stories in Edwin Seaver (ed.), ''Cross section 1948: a collection of new American writing'' (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1948)
*Arthur Mills Stratton, 'A Letter-Box at Ephesus', in ''Cross section: a collection of new American writing'' volume 4 (1969)

Quotations

*" Radama was a conqueror. He was a drunkard. Andrianampoinimerina, the Prince Worthy of the Highland People Under the Sun, made his son into an alcoholic and, in effect, cut the young man's throat."
*"Madagascar's great luxury is space, luminous, beautiful emptiness, mile after mile of grassland, brush, and woodland, broken by craggy mountains."
*"Of lemurs, Madagascar has almost the monopoly; this charming primate family branched off the main stem of the tree too soon — before the monkeys, before the apes, before the Hominidae."
*" 'So am I American', she said, speaking educated, cultivated French; and, having surprised me, coolly added 'Central American, from Martinique' ".''The Great Red Island'', p. 231

Footnotes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stratton, Arthur
1911 births
1975 deaths
American Field Service personnel of World War II
Writers from Brunswick, Maine
Bowdoin College alumni
Columbia University alumni
People of the Central Intelligence Agency
People of the Office of Strategic Services
Recipients of the Croix de Guerre 1939–1945 (France)
20th-century American writers
Walker family
20th-century American male writers
American expatriates in Turkey