When Books Went to War

by Molly Guptill Manning

  As these early testaments demonstrate, books played a special role at war. They soothed troubled minds and hearts, and they achieved these feats where other pastimes failed. Books were the saving grace for many men facing combat, as accounts from all fronts confirm. As one scholar on the role of books in wartime observed, men gratefully turned to books because they “remind[ed] them of home or express[ed] their own moods and thoughts, which had to stay dammed up, for the most part, in the noisy commonplaces and promiscuity of barracks life.” The therapeutic role that books played in allowing men to process their own circumstances by reading stories about others kept them wanting to read more and more. Books of humor made them laugh when there was nothing funny about their circumstances. Tales of life back home transported them to the places they missed and hoped to see again. By reading, the men received the closest thing to a respite from war. As one private wrote from France, “Books are often the sole means of escape for GI’s” and “I have seen many a man who never before had the patience or inclination to read a book, pick up one of the Council’s and become absorbed and ask for more.”

  Lieutenant Colonel Trautman tried to explain why books were so popular among servicemen. He observed that the average soldier in World War II was a civilian who had an eleventh-grade education, and whose previous use of books was largely confined to required schoolwork. Most of the soldiers did not go to the library in their home communities, and their reading habits focused on “printed matter equivalent to a three-hundred-page book each week”—ranging anywhere from comics to newspaper and magazine articles. With the war underway, these men were sent to all parts of the world, including many places where there was nothing to read in English; where there were no newspapers, and every magazine and book had to be transported thousands of miles. Next to letters from home, these books and magazines were treasured because they allowed the men to tap into the life they had left behind in America. Some men received such comfort from seeing a book in English or a familiar magazine that they were transformed into readers for life.

  If there was any doubt about the value of the ASEs, the summer of 1944 would put them to rest. As Americans trekked across France to Paris and leapfrogged from one Pacific island to the next, they would be surrounded by nothing but the war, and comforted by little apart from their books.

  SEVEN

  Like Rain in the Desert

  For days I’ve been hunting through our service club, bothering the Red Cross, scanning our library shelves and hunting unrelentlessly through the barracks—for what???? G-183! G-183! G-183!

  —SERGEANT B. S.

  AS THE ALLIES marched toward Paris, a very different war was being fought in the Pacific. Beginning just north of Australia and moving toward the shores of Japan, the Allies slowly made progress capturing one island after another from the Japanese. Assigned to perhaps the deadliest theater in the war, the Americans stationed in the Pacific faced a succession of suicidal assaults. Morale continually dipped as these men, lucky to have survived one amphibious invasion, were shipped out to another island to do it again, knowing full well what was in store. Over time, the Pacific developed notoriety for the savagery of the fighting and the horrendous conditions of island life. Men admitted feeling an incredible sense of loneliness and isolation as they fought for islands that seemed insignificant and uninhabitable. It was difficult for them to fathom why any country had an interest in territory as undesirable as some of the islands they invaded.

  If ever there was a place where the troops needed an emotional lift, it was on the islands they compared to hell. To offset the barbarity of the conditions and warfare, recreational items and amusements were essential. In the early days of an invasion, books were one of the few diversions that were small enough to be carried by the men without being a burden. And escaping into a book, even for only a few minutes, could do wonders for their well-being. Come hell or high water (and there were both), Special Services officers did their damnedest to get books onto these islands as quickly as possible.

  One of the early battles that initiated Americans to island warfare was for Guadalcanal, which came on the heels of the Allied victory at Midway. Guadalcanal—described by a war correspondent as “a steaming, malarial ‘green hell’” with “no value in itself” apart from a strategically important airstrip—was fiercely defended by the Japanese. Conditions on the island were extreme. After a long day of rigorous fighting, sleep was nearly impossible. Incessant bombings and night raids kept Marines tumbling from their bedrolls to foxholes and back again, as if they were subject to the ebb and flow of a warped tide. A weepy tropical rain ensured their bedding was soggy, and mosquitos pursued the Americans with almost as much vigor as the Japanese. Snipers swarmed after sundown, keeping the Marines on alert at all hours. When a man tried to catch a few winks while a friend kept watch, he was lulled to sleep by the incessant buzzing of pestilential insects, punctuated by shooting and shrieking mortars. “The nights are passed in wet chill and discomfort and the days in mud and filth,” one man said. In the words of a war correspondent: “Guadalcanal’s greatest pleasure is . . . still being alive.”

  As the Marines suffered on the island, sailors in the United States Navy fared no better offshore. In what has been described as the “worst defeat in a fair fight ever inflicted,” the Imperial Japanese Navy sank four cruisers and chased a fifth away in a mere thirty-two minutes on August 9, 1942, in the Battle of Savo Island, sustaining only minor damage in return. Over the next several months, the Navy would continue to endure grievous losses. By the time the battle for Guadalcanal ended in February 1943, so many ships had been torpedoed, damaged, and sunk that the body of water between Guadalcanal, Savo, and the Florida Islands earned the nickname Ironbottom Sound.

  Each battle that followed Guadalcanal proved more deadly than the last. Those who survived some of the Pacific’s most extreme fighting found themselves poised to invade Saipan in June 1944. The first waves of troops to arrive faced a stream of death. The Japanese created a false sense that the invasion would be easy, patiently holding their fire until Marine amphibious tractors were within a thousand yards and then unleashing an avalanche of fire on the Americans. Dead and wounded men covered the beach. Those who survived the violent landing experienced unfathomable brutality. Two days into the invasion, Japanese tanks ripped through American lines and drove back and forth over the Marines’ foxholes. “It was a case of keeping your head down while Jap tanks crunched over the slit trenches and foxholes . . . hoping they would straddle your position instead of running the tread in your hole,” one Marine said. “A tank ran over my hole,” a dazed platoon sergeant reported. After the tank passed, he “lit a fuse and tossed a whole pack of demolition charges on top of the damn thing.” Casualties mounted with ferocious speed. Over fifteen thousand Marines were wounded, killed, or missing by the end of the one-month battle, making Saipan the bloodiest battle of the Pacific—up to that point.

  To temper the stress of battle and provide an escape from the death that surrounded the men, recreation and rest periods were critical. The Special Services Division worked miracles to try to get morale-boosting equipment onto each island in record time. Within four days of the first American landing on Saipan, the Marines were greeted with a boatload of books. Three days later, a library was established. Even if they could only steal a sliver of time to themselves—to read a passage from a book of humor or an excerpt from a western—a brief distraction could go a long way. When shipments of ASEs arrived, they were eagerly grabbed, stowed away, and taken into battle. Some never made it out. As one Marine on Saipan shared with the Council on Books in Wartime:

  The morning after a particularly trying night of heavy enemy mortar fire . . . I was walking along the road when I saw some of the dead being loaded gently into the backs of several trucks which had been drawn up to take their bodies to the division cemetery. I looked to see if I recognized any of the dead marines. There were half a dozen stretched out, some on their backs, and
several face down. One of the latter was a young, fair-haired private who had only recently arrived as a replacement, full of exuberance at finally being a full-fledged marine on the battle front. As I looked down at him I saw something which I don’t think I shall ever forget. Sticking from his back trouser pocket was a yellow pocket edition of a book he had evidently been reading in his spare moments. Only the title was visible—Our Hearts Were Young and Gay.

  More than a year into the program, and having distributed nine monthly shipments of books among the armed forces, the council was eager to hear from more servicemen about how the ASEs were being received. Turning to Stars and Stripes, a newspaper by and for soldiers, it arranged for the publication of a small blurb under the headline “Mail Call,” asking for feedback and suggestions from the men themselves. Was the council sending the right selection of titles? What books would the troops like to see in future editions? Were the ASEs holding up?

  The servicemen were delighted to be asked for their opinion. Their regimented military lifestyle rarely involved being asked what they thought; they were usually told what to do and followed orders. The opportunity to have their voices heard made them feel a bit like civilians again. Bags of mail were delivered to the council with letters that lauded its efforts, requested specific titles, told daring tales of reading under fire, or bitterly complained about a certain book. Every letter was read, and most were answered.

  Enthusiastic letters announced the ubiquitousness and popularity of ASEs among the troops. A Red Cross field director said that it was “not an uncommon sight to see men in long chow lines reading from one of the editions. They carry them to the movie theater to await the start of the picture; to read between duty paroles; to kill a few minutes before ‘lights out’; while waiting in the sick bay for treatment; or sweating it out in the barber shop.” A major in the South Pacific reported that an ASE was stuffed into every pocket. “Soldiers carry your books with them and read them in jeeps, on ducks, in alligators and weasels, as well as on LST’s, on landing barges, and while waiting for coffee to boil between lulls at command posts,” he said. From the USS Independence, one man wrote that the ASEs were “so popular that one is . . . out of uniform if one isn’t sticking out of the hip pocket!” Another serviceman weighed in from a hospital bed in England: “From the Airborne Infantry of the front lines to the chair-borne Finance Corps of the rear, you can find the boys reading as they never have before.”

  Many letters hailed the ASEs as the best feature of military life. “Proof at last,” a second lieutenant declared, that “there are, come training and shipment overseas, despite the wife and girl you leave behind and the stridency of regimentation, advantages in the serviceman’s life. I don’t mean cigarettes [or] chocolate bars,” he said, “I mean the stirring edition of your pocket-books—the Armed Services Editions, which, through someone’s high-mindedness, sense of humor, and also appreciation of many tastes, is simply (but imaginatively) superb.” Another serviceman wrote, “I do not know who you are or how your organization was ever started . . . however, I want to thank you for providing so many books in such a handy form for all of us in the service.” A lieutenant in India extended “damned sincere thanks” for the publication of “everything from Zane Grey to Plato.” From Italy, an American soldier remarked that sending books to the services was akin to making it “rain in the desert.” “There are many times when the only entertainment, relaxation, and mental stimulation is reading, so you can see how welcome the ‘Armed Services’ books are,” he said.

  Anyone who had made a long trip by sea knew what a difference a box of ASEs could make. One sailor who left California for Pearl Harbor wrote that the eight hundred men aboard his ship had “six long tiresome days at sea to look forward to,” but when the library produced a box of ASEs, the sailors “grabbed them up like children with a box of chocolates.” “They have made a lot of sailors happy and entertained during the many days of travel at sea,” he said. Another sailor wrote, “Since I have been in the service I have not seen any single thing more worthwhile (or comparable in any other respect) than the Armed Services Editions.”

  Many appreciated the council’s eclectic selection of titles, for there was always a range of subject matters and genres in each month’s delivery. A dubious infantryman, who had feared that the ASEs would be confined to rudimentary offerings such as Zane Grey westerns and Tarzan stories, wrote to the council that he was “gratifyingly pleased . . . that you have eschewed such monstrosities.” (The council ultimately published several of Grey’s westerns and two Tarzan books). Another man said that the council’s book selectors were “worthy of a medal” based on the conviction they exhibited in “the intellectual curiosity of the average soldier.”

  When servicemen learned that the work of a favorite author had been printed in ASE format, they would do nearly anything to track down a copy. As the inside back cover of each ASE listed all of the titles published that month, the men could check for books they wanted to read and scavenge their unit to find them. “For days I’ve been hunting through our service club, bothering the Red Cross, scanning our library shelves and hunting unrelentlessly through the barracks—for what???? G-183! G-183! G-183!” one man exclaimed. “Yes G-183,” he said, Low Man on a Totem Pole by H. Allen Smith. Smith was a favorite author of this sergeant’s, and he begged the council to send him a copy; he even offered to pay for one. A man stationed in England asked for copies of The Robe and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn; he had already searched high and low for them and harassed the Special Services Division, but no copies could be found. He added: “You have no idea how many hours of pleasure your books give us.”

  When the council asked for book suggestions, it unleashed a storm of ideas from men anxious to find favorite authors and popular titles. People from all walks of life and with completely opposing tastes wrote to ask for more books. A sampling of these letters reveals that the council could do no wrong so long as it continued to include as many different types of books in each series as possible.

  One man wrote that many soldiers “would like to get hold of Anna Karenina (literally),” in addition to Dumas novels, and Balzac. Yet he advised to “ease up on the historical novels,” and “it might not hurt to try a single classic a month.” A petition-like letter signed by an entire unit asked for two books: a dictionary, and Tad Potter by Asa Wilgus. Tad Potter told the story of a young man forced to choose between living on his family’s New England farm or moving to a big city with the woman he loved. A librarian at a station hospital in the Ryukyu Islands seconded the request for Tad Potter. That book “requires little ‘sales talk,’” the librarian said. “To interest a GI reader you have only to turn to the first page about a boy coming home in the Spring.” From another hospital, a request came in for more plays—Shakespeare, George Bernard Shaw, and Broadway comedies. One man’s fondness for classics could be another man’s nightmare. “There is just one bit of criticism that I have to offer,” one sergeant said after complimenting the bulk of the council’s work. “I believe that the majority of the fellows prefer fiction, especially of the modern type,” he said. Another man wrote that his only complaint was that there were not enough sports books. “My personal preference is for history and biography, but I know from observation that no one of your selections goes neglected or unappreciated,” an engineer wrote.

  Many servicemen were interested in reading about the nations involved in the war. One corporal wrote from the Pacific, where he had been stationed for some time, to say he was appalled by how little Americans knew about the history of that part of the world. He asked the council to help them out and print books on the culture and history of the Far East. From New Caledonia, a private first class wrote that, although the council had printed histories of Britain and North Africa, he was disappointed that it did not publish works on France, Russia, China, and India. In addition to requesting histories of these nations, he urged the council to print books on the “recent history and people of th
e Axis” to build “soldier and sailor understanding of our foreign policy and what it should be.”

  Enthusiasm for the council’s books and special requests for certain titles spilled into letters the men wrote to their loved ones. Many praised the council’s work to such a degree that anxious mothers, wives, sisters, and girlfriends wrote to the council to see if they could purchase ASEs for a special occasion or to supplement their next care package. The wife of an American POW in Germany asked the council to send her a book that complied with all of the restrictions Germany placed on books. A Navy nurse wrote the council, telling of how enthusiastically the ASEs were received by her patients. However, her brother, who was in the Army, had complained in a letter that he did not have enough reading material, and she wanted the council to send books to him. A caring sister wrote to the council about her brother, who had told her all about the miniature books that were making the rounds where he was stationed. There were three titles that he was eager to read, but could not find, and he begged his sister to help. “He says that I couldn’t send him a nicer gift than those three little books,” she said.

  In response to most letters requesting ASEs, the council offered to inform the Special Services Division that books were needed in a particular theater or unit. Although council employees wanted to fulfill requests for certain ASEs, they were contractually obligated to give the Army and Navy all the ASEs that were manufactured. The council even refused a request from the United States Treasury Department for five hundred sets of ASEs to send to Australia under a lend-lease arrangement.