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Saturday, May 20, 2017

[Link] From Katanga to Hiroshima; or the Pulp Fiction Author Who Was a Spy

by Tanth J. Graysmoke 

"In a book review last week, I mentioned that the uranium used to explode Hiroshima and Nagasaki (pictured above) came from the Belgian Congo.  Today, I’ll look more at that through Spies in the Congo (2016) by Susan Williams, with an audio book narrated by Justine Eyre.  The book is about how OSS agents and their “cut-outs” secured the American monopoly on the uranium from Katanga, a region in what is today southern Congo-Kinshasa. ...

"There are some great characters populating Ms. Williams’ narrative. The star of the book is Wilbur Owings “Dock” Hogue.  He seemed like a pretty normal dude to be chased around by Nazi agents.  He’s interesting to me, mainly because he was an amateur author of pulp fiction.  He published Adventure stories under his own name and Mystery stories under the name Carl Shannon, using his own experiences to write a thriller about a spy hunting Nazi diamond smugglers in Africa.  He seemed to have a promising little side career going before he died of radiation poisoning at age 42."

Read the full article: https://afeastknown.wordpress.com/2017/05/05/from-katanga-to-hiroshima-or-the-pulp-fiction-author-who-was-a-spy/

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