The Secret War of Julia Child, Or Julia Child and Me: Guest Post by Diana R. Chambers

Full disclosure: I’m not a cook. Not a Julia Child fangirl. 

I felt a certain connection to her, though—France, no doubt. The feeling we’d walked the same Paris streets, maybe shopped the same outdoor markets, marveled at the silvery light, strolled across the bridges and along the Seine. 

Then, about ten years ago, I learned that during World War Two, she’d served with America’s first espionage agency, the Office of Strategic Services—OSS. In India, Ceylon, and China. 

The Julia Child? Really? In the OSS? 

Imagine. The matronly “French Chef” with the twinkle in her eye had lived an entirely other life. Having to protect the secrets, think on her feet, determine whom she could trust. On the Asian front lines! 

My brain took flight. I’d studied and explored India for-practically-ever, with many visits to China and Southeast Asia. And my earlier novels had espionage subplots, so I was intrigued to pull back the curtains on those classified years. 

My other projects and ideas fell to the wayside. May I say, I love research. 

I began collecting an extensive range of old, often out-of-print books relating to the China-Burma-India (CBI) theater of WWII—memoirs, biographies, novels, military accounts, histories of espionage and cryptography. Cultural and political analyses, including studies on imperialism and colonialism from a non-Western perspective. I would learn this conflict is known as the “Forgotten War of Asia” for good reason. As Western attention has usually focused on Europe and the Pacific, I had to dig deep and read far around my central story. I came away with a profound awareness of the suffering and sacrifices of the various peoples of Asia. The Indians postponed their hard-fought independence struggle for the global good. Without China’s ten-year resistance against the Imperial Japanese Army, the invaders might have swept across Central Asia to come to Germany’s aid. We owe them all an enormous debt. 

The other part of research for me is always boots on the ground. Travel loomed. 

I’d never visited Sri Lanka, formerly known as Ceylon. Here the Yanks and Brits had their clandestine bases outside the British hill station, Kandy, where Julia met Paul—short, balding, pretentious, and almost-forty, as she first judged him. Later they were posted to Kunming on the perilous front lines of southwest China where their relationship took hold amid bombs and black market intrigue. As I learned more of their moving love affair, my heart opened to them both. (Despite his own talent and healthy ego, Paul was a firm feminist who supported Julia’s dreams and successes his whole life.) 

Her Asian journey began in Bombay where her troopship docked in April 1944. The deadly explosion of a cargo ship bearing cotton, gold bullion, and TNT was Julia’s initiation to war. The horrors would continue, death and destruction, treachery and deceit. But also loyalty, friendship—and love. As I followed Julia’s path, she helped me discover her story. And mine. 

While we both grew up in southern California, Julia McWilliams was a Mayflower descendant. We were both raised on meat and potatoes, though. And we both had big dreams. Both our mothers took us to the library, where I first discovered the world. Like Julia, I grew up with Nancy Drew and, like her, moved on to mysteries and spy fiction. I would spin my world globe to the faraway places I read about. Maybe it was A Tale of Two Cities, but I was soon wandering the cobblestones of Paris...and who knows? Maybe A Little Princess sent me to the bazaars and backstreets of India. There, I began an export business that led to Hollywood costuming, then scriptwriting. 

Julia came to France later in life, but the locales in her wartime journey were also my own touchstones. Now my research took me to new sites, new adventures—narrow-gauge steam trains, an ashram’s icy, cavernous baths, Hindu and Buddhist temples dense with worshippers and art. Stirring elephant reserves. Melancholy ruins of a long-lost civilization. The veggie-based curries and dosas of southern India and Sri Lanka. I also revisited Kunming in China’s southwest Yunnan Province—terminus of the Burma Road with its lakes, birds, and lotus blossoms. We explored Lijiang, a World Heritage river town surrounded by the jagged, snowy peaks Julia flies over from India, and, downhill, Dali’s Old Town, whose mushrooms flavor the sautéed, hand-pulled noodles Julia tastes in Kunming. We took a bus up to the thunderous waterfalls marking the border between southeast China and Vietnam. It was 100% humidity, everything with a scrim of mist, dream-like. 

Julia must have experienced a similar bombardment of the senses. How had it felt, finding herself in this distant corner of the world, this crossroads of place and time, this dramatic moment in history? References to Casablanca are apt. 

I’d never heard the thunder of bombs, but we’d both known monsoons, mud, and dust, dripping humidity and frizzing hair, sweat dripping down our legs. Also naan, mangoes, spicy curries, fragrant rice, and warm beer. Spice markets, their burlap sacks bursting with color and fragrance. My sense of connection with her grew. 

I could have been that adventurous young Californian who hadn’t yet found her way when Pearl Harbor struck. I might have bid farewell to that faithful beau who didn’t make my heart go pitter-patter and hopped a train to Washington. And got a job—in the spy trade! Then itched to serve in the field. Some distant post...India! 

Like Julia, I’d bounced about through in my twenties, from LA to NY and back. I’d also spent two years in Paris, which was still in her future. But around age thirty, we were both called to India; for both of us these were formative years. Her story felt so personal! 

The Secret War of Julia Child was a novel I had to write. 

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Diana R. Chambers was born with a book in one hand and a passport in the other. Her first explorations were in the library, plotting adventures on her world globe. She went on to study Asian art history at university, work at a Paris translation agency, and begin an export business in India. Then somehow she found herself in Hollywood writing scripts—until her characters demanded their own novels. Her latest is The Secret War of Julia Child, a People magazine Best Book of Fall 2024, Must-Read! Diana lives in Northern California and Aix-en-Provence, France, with her fellow-traveler husband, artist daughter, and cat, Marco Polo. She is still following her stories around the world. Still looking for the perfect suitcase. dianarchambers.com, Instagram @dianarc1, Twitter @DianaRChambers, Facebook DianaRChambersAuthor.