WORLD WAR II BLACKOUT IS FACTOR IN AIRPLANE CRASH CLAIMING THE LIFE OF ACTRESS, CAROLE LOMBARD

By Linda Lee Greene, Author & Artist

Boy, am I in trouble now! When Clark finds out that I insisted on gambling my life and that of my mother and the others in my entourage on this TWA DC-3 flight on a flip of a coin, he will never forgive me. And how will I get this past God? How will I justify to God that I wagered our precious lives in such a frivolous way to get what I wanted?

God’s fearsome voice, as I stand in front of Him to receive His judgement following the plane’s crash into Potosi Mountain, cuts my soul in two. “Just because you are Carole Lombard, famous movie star of Hollywood’s golden age, goddess of the silver screen whom every woman admires and envies—just because you are married to Clark Gable, the king of Hollywood, you had no right to act in such a flippant way. Yes, you are only 33, and some might chalk up your behavior to your youth, but I, your God, am not sure I am inclined to do so. But, as is My way, I grant you the chance to explain your motives and solicit my forgiveness.”

            What can I say to God? I can only tell the truth as I see it. “We had two choices of transportation from Las Vegas to Los Angeles, God. We could have traveled by train or airplane. But the train was scheduled to leave so much later than the airplane, and I was anxious to get back home.”

            “You are telling me that your desire to get home faster dictated your judgment—that your selfish desire overshadowed the fact that traveling by train is so much safer than doing so by airplane, especially in this age of World War II and your country is on high alert against Japanese bombers? Did you stop to consider that the airplane would have to fly blind in the mandatory blackout across America? Out of concern that the entire western USA is vulnerable to Japanese attack, the lighted beacon system for aircraft is turned off, and the only light on the ground by which the airplane traveled is at Arden, east of Potosi?”

            “The risk occurred to me, God. But it was a wee small voice in my mind compared to the urgent cry in my head to get home. Besides, wouldn’t the pilot have aborted the flight if there had been such danger?”

            “The pilot and his superiors bear guilt for this tragedy, too, Mrs. Gable. But that fact does not excuse your part in it.”

            “But God, you just do not understand. Clark and Lana Turner were shooting another film together and Clark was dewy-eyed over her again. I had to get back to Hollywood and put a stop to the whole thing.”

            “First of all, you did not know for sure that the allegation is true, and second, would arriving a few hours earlier really have made any difference if it is true?”

            “I was just so jealous. I wanted to get to Hollywood and scratch Lana Turner’s eyes out. I couldn’t stand the thought of their spending the night together. I had to get there. Nothing else mattered to me.”

            “Onboard with you were 15 soldiers from the Army Air Force Ferryman Command, warriors in your country’s fight against the Axis enemy. They were returning to the west coast after having delivered aircraft to a new bomber base. The wife of a soldier also lost her life in the airplane crash. Of course, I do not implicate you in those death.”

            “Doesn’t the fact that I was returning home from a tour across the nation in which I raised over two million dollars in War Bonds for the war effort count in my favor, I ask you, God? And it is well known that I have worked tirelessly in humanitarian causes, helping Hollywood’s down and out and advocating for women’s rights.”

            “I can foresee the headlines now, Mrs. Gable. There will be a seductive temptation on the part of the press to label you as a patriot who died in service to her country. I suppose that will have to be part of the mix that I will consider in milling over your case. However, I want you to know that I am not happy with you. Many of my wise children label what you are to face as ‘Karma’. You will not soon make amends for your recklessness. You movie stars are just so spoiled. If I thought it would do any good, I would turn you over my knees and spank you until you call ‘Uncle’. Go! Go! Leave me now. I command you to spend the next hours watching your poor husband’s suffering. See him down there in that saloon on the edge of the crash site swilling booze and smoking cigars in an effort to numb himself of the terrible outcome of this event? Look! Look now and see what you have done!”©

Image: Clark Gable and Carole Lombard, circa 1939

The above is a work of historical fiction by multi-award winning author Linda Lee Greene. It is based on true events. Greene’s eBooks and paperbacks are available for purchase through Amazon. Her latest novel, A CHANCE AT THE MOON is described below:

Amid the seductions of Las Vegas, Nevada and an idyllic coffee plantation on Hawai’i’s Big Island, a sextet of opposites converge within a shared fate: a glamorous movie-star courting distractions from her troubled past; her shell-shocked bodyguards clutching handholds out of their hardscrabble lives; a dropout Hawaiian nuclear physicist gambling his way back home; a Navajo rancher seeking cleansing for harming Mother Earth; and from its lofty perch, the Hawaiian’s guardian spirit conjured as his pet raven, conducting this symphony of soul odysseys.

Was it chance or destiny’s hand behind the movie-star and gambler’s curious encounter at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas? The cards fold, their hearts open, and a match strikes, flames that sizzle their hearts and souls. Can they have the moon and the stars, too? Or is she too dangerous? Is he? Can their love withstand betrayal? Can it endure murder?

While the cards at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas fail to distract them from their troubled pasts, on the side, the actress and the gambler play a game of ‘will they won’t they’ romance. Meanwhile, an otherworldly hand also has a big stake in the game. Unexpected secrets unfold brimming with dangerous consequences, and finally, a strange brand of salvation.

Amazon Buy Links:

https://www.amazon.com/CHANCE-AT-MOON-Betrayal-Murder-ebook/dp/B07Z44YN9X/  - EBOOK



https://www.amazon.com/CHANCE-AT-MOON-Betrayal-Murder/dp/169984402X/ - PAPERBACK

A CHANCE AT THE MOON - FIRST CHAPTER - LINDA LEE GREENE'S NEW NOVEL

TITLE: A CHANCE AT THE MOON

AUTHOR: LINDA LEE GREENE

GENRE: ROMANTIC THRILLER

PURCHASE LINK: 

https://www.amazon.com/CHANCE-AT-MOON-Betrayal-Murder-ebook/dp/B07Z44YN9X/

One

C

olumbus, Ohio, October 7, 2002—The broad tree-lined avenues leading to the courthouse in the heart of downtown Columbus were crammed bumper-to-bumper with cars of spectators blowing their horns and thrusting middle fingers at one another through open windows. Traffic cops were busy maintaining order. The trial of the person charged the year before with the fatal shooting of one of the city’s most prominent citizens, businesswoman and philanthropist Inez Montoyo, was the enticement for the swarm. Ms. Montoyo’s daughter, acclaimed Broadway and Hollywood actress Olivia Montoyo Simms, was to give her testimony on this the opening day of the proceedings, and was the prime quarry the C’bus citizens had in their sites. It was the job of Nicholas Plato and his twin brother Tobias to shield her from the throng. As the watch on his wrist marked off minutes perilously close to the slated time of the commencement of the trial, Nicholas was growing concerned about whether or not the driver of their limousine would get them to the courthouse on time.

The judge thwacked her gavel on the little pad on her desktop and opened the trial officially. “Crack, crack, crack,” like gunshots the sound brought the room to attention, and Olivia jerked in the chair beside Nicholas. Just like Judge Judy on TV, Nicholas thought to himself, and then he gathered Olivia’s pale cold hands in his large palm and felt her settle into his reassuring touch. He had been worried about the skills of the limousine driver needlessly, as it turned out. The man had pulled some maneuvers that could have won him a spot as a stunt driver with a Hollywood movie studio, and had delivered them to the designated entrance of the building with time to spare. At that point, Nicholas and Tobias had worked for Olivia as her personal bodyguards for more than a year, duties that required their presence 24 hours a day, under her roof, and at her beck and call. The brothers occupied a separate wing of her home in a posh suburb of Las Vegas, a sprawling ranch she had purchased a few weeks after the death of her mother on July 13, 2001. Later that same year, she had sold her flat in Manhattan and her home in Los Angeles. She appeared content to set roots in Las Vegas, leaving behind her acting career, it seemed, as well.

Having to be practically nose-to-nose with the assassin for the first time since the murder, and reliving its retched details in the courtroom testimonies, of course proved worse for Olivia than the awful anticipation of it had been. It was an age-old story of an aggrieved employee taking revenge on his employer. A guilty verdict was brought in late that afternoon. Olivia elected to return to Las Vegas that same evening rather than staying in town and visiting with relatives and friends, some of whom had positioned themselves among the courtroom spectators and had exchanged glances and nods with her throughout the long day. A shaken Olivia and her solicitous bodyguards boarded the private jet one of her wealthy cronies had provided for their roundtrip flight, and departed Columbus as nightfall swallowed the horizon. Upon takeoff, she lowered the shade on the jet’s window that gave view below of the tight cluster of buildings and streets alight with the late hour, and wished never to be called back to her hometown again. She put the thought of Columbus and the trial out of her mind, and wondered if “Nicky” and “Toby,” as she called her bodyguards, would be up for a late-night jaunt to one of the casinos upon their arrival in Las Vegas. She pulled the vial of pain pills from her handbag, shook two of them into her palm, and popped them into her mouth—no chaser required. His tired grunt preceding his movements, Tobias pushed out of the seat next to hers, found a bottle of water in the jet’s galley kitchen, and delivered it to Olivia, its top twisted open. “Thanks,” she said, and then took a delicate sip. Cupping her hands over her aching belly, she laid her head back and closed her eyes.   

All through the following months, the tragedy cloyed with little letup in Olivia’s psyche. As July 13, 2003, the second anniversary of her mother’s death, drew near, Olivia’s body had long been displaying undeniable indicators of her soul’s reckoning with her, most notably in chronic abdominal distress and changes to the left side of her lovely face, in a drawn corner of her mouth, a sleepy eye, a narrowed nostril, features faintly askew as if she had recovered imperfectly from a slight stroke. Oddly, rather than detracting from her beauty, the imbalance in her face rendered her beguiling in a way different than before, fascinating in the way a freeway pile-up transfixes onlookers, both of them having death, or at least, mayhem in common. There was more to it than that, however. Loss was plain to see in her face, as was guilt from time to time—yes, guilt, because a determined vein of speculation threaded through the population as to whether or not she had had a hand in shaping her mother’s death, with or without intention. The investigation of the case had revealed that Olivia and her mother had been estranged from each other for several years, only to have reached a truce in the months prior to the murder. A sidebar to the situation was the fact that the murderer had been Olivia’s lover when she was only sixteen, a relationship to which her mother had put a stop. While Olivia had managed to put it behind her and move on with her life, the boyfriend had not done so, it seemed clear. That he had stayed on as an employee of Madam Montoyo’s after the fact unleashed rampant conjecture regarding the meaning behind it. Subsequent to the murder, the issue pricked Olivia like a thorn in her conscience now and then, but usually languished there, unexamined, and therefore, unresolved, as indeed it remained an unanswered tidbit among followers of the case.

In the face of all that had transpired, the essential life lessons the tragedy had to teach Olivia seemed to have failed to penetrate her conscious mind, at least in the aspect of amending her behavior, apparent in a stubborn ignorance or defiance unmistakable in the backward thrust of her shoulders, the high tilt of her chin, and her nightly pursuit of Las Vegas distractions. There was no hint that her best self would win in the end, due in no small way to her reliable attraction to risk-taking. Her youth and her penchant for recklessness had paid off big time in the past, markedly in her determined, meteoric rise in the film industry while still a teenager, but with the murder and its consequences, life had placed heavy odds against her.

The stakes notwithstanding, it had to be played out. It had already begun—something had been building in the atmosphere, something of moment, some extraordinary event about to be set in motion—some deciding factor. Like air pressure rising, clouds banking, seas roiling in advance of a menacing storm, it churned around Olivia. Nicholas understood that it had long been decided that he and Tobias would play supporting roles to her central one in the coming affair. In wary expectation, Nicholas waited in the wings for the remaining actors to appear.

Lights!      Camera!       Action!

A CHANCE AT THE MOON: LOVE . BETRAYAL . MURDER - Your Weekend Read or Gift for Mom

While the cards at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas fail to distract them from their troubled pasts, on the side, the actress and the gambler play a game of ‘will they won’t they’ romance. Meanwhile, an otherworldly hand also has a big stake in the game. Set in Las Vegas country and Hawaii’s Big Island, unexpected secrets unfold brimming with dangerous consequences, and finally, a strange brand of salvation.

Multi-award-winning author, Linda Lee Greene’s new novel, A CHANCE AT THE MOON: LOVE . BETRAYAL . MURDER is available worldwide for purchase in ebook and paperback on Amazon - https://www.amazon.com/CHANCE-AT-MOON-Betrayal-Murder/dp/169984402X/. #WeekendRead, #GiftforMom, #ASMSG

LINDA LEE GREENE RELEASES NEW NOVEL

I am so pleased to announce the release of my new novel,

A CHANCE AT THE MOON – A Novel of Love, Betrayal, Murder, and a Touch of Paranormal.



Actress Olivia Montoyo Simms escapes the shadow of her mother’s gruesome murder and the relentless demands of Hollywood and loses herself in the cards at Las Vegas casinos. But like hounds on the scent, the scandal tracks her. And true to her history, it shows up in the person of a dashing Hawaiian gambler named Koa Kalua’i. Neither of them are strangers at taking risks and too often losing—will they win in their chance at the moon this time?



Available for purchase in eBook and Paperback on Amazon - https://www.amazon.com/CHANCE-AT-MOON-Betrayal-Murder/dp/169984402X/