Arthur Stratton papers

Arthur Mills Stratton was born on July 27, 1911, in Clinton, Massachusetts. Following his graduation from Bowdoin College in 1935, he studied for a year at Columbia University from which he received a master of arts degree in 1942. He studied and wrote in France from 1938 until enlisting in the American Volunteer Ambulance Service in January 1940. For bravery "in evacuating the wounded under heavy machine gun and artillery fire" during the German advance on Paris he was awarded the French Croix de Guerre in April 1940, the first American known to receive the award during World War II. From the spring of 1940 until July 1940, he was captured and held by the Germans. Upon his release he joined the American Field Service and was sent to Africa for ambulance service with the Free French, where he was badly wounded at Bir Hakeim in the Libyan desert.

Stratton taught English at Robert College in Turkey from 1942 to 1944, when he joined the Office of Strategic Service, a predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency. From 1946 to 1950, he taught English at Bowdoin, and at various times after that was a member of the faculty at Robert College. He traveled widely and lived for long periods in India, Greece, Madagascar, Lebanon, and Turkey.

Stratton was the author of numerous books including "Lord Love Us" (1949), a novel; "One Man's India (1955), a travel book; "The Great Red Island" (1964), a study of Madagascar; and "Sinan" (1972), a biography of the 16th century Ottoman architect, Sinan addur-Mennan.

Arthur Stratton died of cancer on September 1, 1975, in Washington, DC.