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I would really like to hear all your theories on Duane Higgins in Wingmen! I also find him an intriguing character 🤔

It all comes down to the notion that he was in love with Jack, but didn’t realize this.

Unlike Fred and Jack, he isn’t fully homosexual — maybe he's even mostly attracted to women. Gay men simply can’t be unaware of their nature, even when trying to repress it, because we’re attracted to only one gender. There's only one option. But the situation is more complicated when it comes to guys like Duane. He was raised and lived in a deeply heteronormative society, where the possibility of same-sex romance wasn’t even considered. So he never considered the possibility of being attracted to Jack, and was satisfied enough to be friends with him while pursuing women on the side. The text itself explains a little about the social rules that Jack and Duane, as two adult men, were expected to follow in their interactions:

"He figured he felt as deeply for Jack Hardigan as he did for any man or woman alive. He never considered using the word “love” to describe the emotion—love being what mothers felt for sons and vice versa, what occasionally fathers felt for sons, and what infrequently and with great caution one felt toward a younger member of the opposite sex." [...] "the two had managed to hang together like husband and wife, or more accurately, like twin brothers." "Despite the closeness between these two, they had not corresponded while they were apart. Attachment for another man is not something two grown men easily admit, so Duane was flabbergasted and secretly overjoyed when the orders came for his transfer to Jack’s squadron."

That all changed when Fred entered the scene, though. Yeah, Duane was envious of Fred’s accomplishments as a pilot, but that’s only part of the issue, the part he allowed himself to admit. He was mad. Mad at Jack for breaking the social rules of male behavior. Mad at Fred for (successfully) pursuing Jack and creating this whole situation. And, deep down, he was beginning to get mad at himself for never having had the courage to try anything with Jack when he had the chance to. Notice that, despite being obsessed with finding out the truth about their relationship, he never threatened Fred and Jack. He knew this could ruin Jack’s life, and he didn’t want that. He was just mad this was happening, and couldn’t stop thinking about the matter.

The character is a representative of this “grey area”/bisexual kind of man. How many of them are there? Most of them spend their entire lives defining themselves as nothing but straight, simply because that's the pattern. In a society more open to accepting different sexualities, like the Western world is starting to be, they could’ve had very different trajectories.

The epilogue raises other questions, too. Was Duane conflicted about the end of his marriage? And he certainly reflected on his feelings for Jack in the post-war years. Did he ever try to approach another man? Fred doesn’t expect to hear from Duane after the funeral, but that’s his (very biased) take. We know he never liked Duane. But what if he saw in Fred someone he could confide his hidden feelings?

By the way, thanks for all the questions. I never had the chance to discuss Wingmen before, so I’m very glad to reply!

#spoilers #duane higgins

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That's an interesting theory. I never thought about a possible symbolic angle. Many thanks, @renaultphile!

*Mild epilogue spoilers*

This passage intrigues me. Is Duane lying about being divorced? It seems so. But why would he do such a thing?

#spoilers #duane higgins

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Wingmen Ensan Case

Fred Trusteau quietly seething when the new guy takes over his beloved war diary and messes it up is the sweetest thing ever. Don't worry he's back writing the diary again in the next chapter.

#fred trusteau #william hill

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Penguin Classics covers for Wingmen.

#book covers

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It’s 3am but I drew my first full body since march 2023, are you proud of me guys guys guys are youproudof me guysguysfuys

#jack hardigan #fanart

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They continued down the path to the liberty boat, talking about the weather, flying, the still-unannounced sailing date, the Oklahoma—everything except themselves and each other. They were two men who were as close as two men could be, but they were still very much apart.

— Ensan Case, Wingmen (1979)

#wingmen #ensan case #literature #lit #gay literature #lgbt literature #gay books #books #booklr #military fiction #historical fiction #gay #lgbt #mlm #quotes

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Wingmen Summary:

Jack Hardigan's Hellcat fighter squadron blew the Japanese Zekes out of the blazing Pacific skies. But a more subtle kind of hell was brewing in his feelings for rookie pilot Fred Trusteau. While a beautiful widow pursues Jack, and another pilot becomes suspicious of Jack and Fred's close friendship, the two heroes cut a fiery swath through the skies from Wake Island to Tarawa to Truk, there to keep a fateful rendezvous with love and death in the blood-clouded waters of the Pacific.

The Song of Achilles Summary:

Retelling of the Illiad, focusing on the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus

#vote wingmen!

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I did some further research on Mr. Ilfrey and I think I have a good idea of who the two fellow pilots he had a relationship with were.

Top Guns: America's Fighter Aces Tell Their Stories (1991) dedicates a chapter to relate Ilfrey's war experiences. He didn't go into much detail about the pilots he spent time with, except when he talked about a personal loss he suffered while in North Africa, in 1943:

Here are two photos of First Lieutenant Richard "Dick" McWherter (1920-1943), plus a report of his funeral:

In other books, Ilfrey also related a rather physical episode he went through in 1944 with his then wingman, First Lieutenant Duane Kelso (1922-1985):

Here's a pic of Kelso, given to the author of P-51 Mustang (1995) by Ilfrey himself:

Ensan Case’s (author of Wingmen) salute to a World War II gay veteran, Jack M. Ilfrey, whose life paralleled the events of his novel:

One letter came from a very special person. I’ll call him Jack. Jack was an Army Air Force pilot in 1941, when the Pearl Harbor attack thrust the United States into the global conflict. Flying the twinengined P-38 Lockheed Lightning, he became one of the Army’s first aces, fighting the Germans in North Africa in late 1942 and early 1943. Highly decorated and an early military celebrity, he eventually ended up in England prior to D-Day in June 1944. Shortly after D-Day, he was shot down by ground fire, but managed to make his way, with French underground assistance, back through the Normandy battle lines to safety and his squadron, of which he was now the commanding officer. Now flying the P-51 Mustang, he added three more kills to his total before the war ended. When that time came, he returned to civilian life, where he became a successful businessman.

Jack’s letter to me, forwarded from Avon Books, was profound. When he left the military in 1946, he wrote a book about his experiences. Due to a glut of war-time books, his was not published. In 1979, in another extraordinary coincidence, he pulled out his 1946 manuscript and published it himself [as Happy Jack’s Go Buggy: A Fighter’s Pilot Story], in the same year as Wingmen.

His book was straight out of 1946, and related his experiences as a womanizing, heavy drinking, hell-for-leather fighter pilot breaking all the rules in search of a good time and a chance to vanquish the hated enemy. It was all true, of course, except for one detail: there were no women in the real story. He had been involved in ardent sexual relationships with two pilots in his squadron. In our correspondence he never revealed what happened to the two pilots, and I never asked. Jack subsequently maneuvered successfully through the minefields of being a prominent citizen of his community and an unmarried man with a close and lifelong male companion.

In his first hand-written letter, which I received in 1980, Jack gave me the greatest accolade an author can receive: he told me that Jack and Fred’s story had been his story as well, and he regretted being unable to honestly tell it to the world. After several years of correspondence, we fell out of touch. I discovered recently, from Internet sites devoted to him, that he passed away in 2004. His book and letters are among my most prized possessions.

#this guy lived quite a life #gay history #lgbt history

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*Mild epilogue spoilers*

This passage intrigues me. Is Duane lying about being divorced? It seems so. But why would he do such a thing?

#wingmen #ensan case #duane higgins #fred trusteau

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December 24, 1943: Fred Trusteau and Jack Hardigan spent their first night together.

#merry christmas!

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#very fred-esque

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First, the 1979 Avon version went out of print. Then, the 2012 Cheyenne Publishing version went out of print. Then, the 2014 Lethe Press version went out of print. Seriously, it seems like this book is cursed to never stay consistently in print or something. It sucks

#😞 #wingmen #ensan case

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He thought of the island. Strange for it to acquire a name after so many years, when he was sure he would never hear or speak of it again. It had always been simply The Island, from the time he first set eyes on it, through the weeks spent enduring hunger on it, through the years of captivity, and the following years of hardship and freedom. Rongelap, Rongelap, Rongelap. He said the name three times to himself. It fit the place well. Harsh, hard syllables for a lonely, barren place.

— Ensan Case, Beach Head (1983)

#beach head #ensan case #military fiction #historical fiction #books #booklr

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#to the freds and jacks out there

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My Ensan Case collection: the first editions of Wingmen and Beach Head.

#wingmen #beach head #ensan case #gay literature #lgbt literature #military fiction #historical fiction #gay books #books #booklr

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Beach Head by Ensan Case

Beach Head is Ensan Case's (author of Wingmen) second novel. It was published in 1983 and has been out of print ever since, so I decided to digitize it to share with my fellow Wingmen fans.

There are some notable similarities between Beach Head and Wingmen, like their structure, the World War II setting and the realistic and slow burn style. However, the (mostly investigative) latter half of Beach Head takes place in the 1960s, and the story has American and Japanese characters. The plot is also much more complex, and there's also much more explicit violence. And while it doesn’t center its narrative around a gay romance like Wingmen, Beach Head has LGBT characters as well.

You can download Beach Head here.

If the link isn't working, or if you have any additional questions, don't hesitate to contact me!

For those who want to know a little more about the novel's plot, here's the (spoiler-ish!) back cover synopsis:

The sand and water were stained red, the beach littered with the bodies of young Marines he had just met. The screams of the wounded and dying rose above the sound of the gunfire.

It wasn't what Carl Randall expected when he left his job on the society pages to become the war correspondent for his father's San Francisco newspaper. When he left the smouldering ruins of Pearl Harbor, he still expected his role to be drinking and storytelling. Randall never imagined that the end of the war would find him stranded on a deserted Pacific island… or the key to a secret the government would never want revealed!

The nightmare of the war stayed with Randall. A generation after the Japanese surrender, it was about to become reality… again!

#beach head #wingmen #ensan case #military fiction #historical fiction #gay literature #lgbt literature #ww2 #wwii #world war 2 #world war ii #books

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That sounds like the curse of being an Ensan Case fan. 😏

Some people in fandom desperately need to become obsessed with something SUPER niche and obscure. Something with like 10 active fans at the very most. Something with only 6 fics if you're very lucky, all but one written by the same dedicated fan. Something where when you do find a fan account, it's been innactive for years. Something that's not available on streaming and its only physical release was never released in your country. Let it humble you.

#i read some russian wingmen fics through google translate #beach head is like a lost manuscript