F. Van Wyck Mason

Van Wyck (pronounced Wike[1]) Mason was born to a patrician Boston family which immigrated to North America during the 17th Century.

He then managed to enlist in the French Army, where he received decorations as an artillery officer, including the Legion of Honor[citation needed].

[6] His hopes of entering the diplomatic corps were thwarted after his father's death, so Mason started an import business instead and spent the next few years traveling the world buying antiques and rugs.

The historical novel apparently did not sell well, because he resumed the mystery/intrigue genre, publishing a dozen or so volumes during the next seven years, including nine more about Hugh North.

Mason was still writing historical stories for the pulps during this period and during 1938 resumed the genre for a major novel, Three Harbours, about the early phases of the American Revolution.

During the next few years, Mason wrote two companion books to Three Harbours – Stars on the Sea and Rivers Of Glory – as well as three more Hugh North mysteries.

During World War II, he worked as Chief Historian on General Eisenhower's staff, having achieved the rank of Colonel, and received numerous awards for bravery.

His main responsibility was to document the war for future generations, but he also wrote a famous communiqué which announced the activities of D-Day to the world.

The next year he wrote Cutlass Empire, a popular novel about the famous buccaneer Henry Morgan, and during 1951 started a trilogy about the US Civil War.

During the 1950s, Mason rewrote more of his pulps for the paperback market and in 1955 published a successful youth book titled The Winter At Valley Forge.

Mason drowned in 1978, while swimming off the coast of Bermuda[13] after having finished Armored Giants, about the battle between the Monitor and Merrimack, which was published posthumously in 1980.

Another of Mason's pulp fiction stories made into a movie was The Enemy's Goal which was used as the basis for The Spy Ring starring Jane Wyman.

Captain (later Major and Colonel) Hugh North was a prototype for James Bond: tough, athletic, a good shot and hand-to-hand fighter, as well as perfect in dress, manner, and speech for elegant society.

Through the years leading up to WW II these stories contain increasing levels of political intrigue but retained a murder mystery as a central theme.

Mason's historical stories nearly always involve some kind of warfare and frequently include naval battles or long sea voyages.