Arthur Stratton

"This article is on the American author. For other persons of the same name, see Arthur Stratton (disambiguation)

Arthur M.P. Stratton (born 1911) is an American author and traveller.

Born in Brunswick, Maine, he had an extremely varied life. He was educated at Bowdoin College in his hometown and at Columbia University later. He was in France on the outbreak of the World War II, and he joined the French Army 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. 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 [ cite web|title = Field Service Has Rendezvous With Death, Yet Life Is Its Aim | url = http://www.ourstory.info/library/4-ww2/Hobbs/texts/text1.html|author = Lt. John N. Hobbs| publisher = The American Field Service |date=1942-07-26|language=English] .

After his recovery, he moved to Turkey and taught English at Robert College in İstanbul. It is during this period that he undertook to write his first major book, a biography of Sinan the Architect, which he dedicated "Chiefly to the Turks" [ Stratton starts the text of his book by reciting the Basmala. ] . After the war, he travelled widely, returning to Turkey often and also living in Greece, Madagascar and India. Madagascar was to inspire him his second major book, a history of the country presented in the form of a biography weaving back and forth between the past and the present, and India his third.

Footnotes

Books

* [http://www.biography-clarebooks.co.uk/item6571.htm] cite book|title = Sinan: Biography of One of the World's Greatest Architects and a Portrait of the Golden Age of the Ottoman Empire ISBN 0333029011|author= Arthur Stratton|publisher=Macmillan Publishers |year=1972|language=English
* [http://www.antiqbook.co.uk/boox/stmary/004103.shtml] cite book|title = One man's India|author= Arthur Stratton|publisher= W.W. Norton & Company, New York City | year=1955 |language=English
* [http://www.madagascar-library.com/r/129.html] cite book|title = The Great Red Island: A biography of Madagascar|author= Arthur Stratton|publisher=|year=|language=English
* [http://www.amazon.com/Lord-Love-Us-M-STRATTON/dp/B000IUXFYK] cite book|title = Lord love us ASIN B000IUXFYK|author= Arthur Stratton|publisher=|year=|language=English