When Books Went to War

by Molly Guptill Manning

  On LSTs, the stress of imminent battle could be suff ocating. Books were a godsend when it came to distraction.

  Once an area was secured, libraries were established. In Italy, this mobile library is housed in a tent, and soldiers recline in folding lounge chairs as they read.

  Publishers and authors received bags of mail from grateful servicemen. ASEs were the most reliable form of amusement; they helped a generation get through the war.

  NINE

  Germany’s Surrender and the Godforsaken Islands

  There were people who cared for him and people who didn’t, and those who didn’t hate him were out to get him . . . But they couldn’t touch him . . . because he was Tarzan, Mandrake, Flash Gordon. He was Bill Shakespeare. He was Cain, Ulysses, the Flying Dutchman; he was Lot in Sodom, Deidre of the Sorrows, Sweeney in the nightingales among trees.

  —JOSEPH HELLER, CATCH-22

  AS AMERICANS TAUNTED death and marched toward victory in Europe in 1945, they were carrying tens of thousands of copies of titles that were forbidden in the lands they walked on. Many authors outlawed by Germany made an appearance by way of the ASEs. American servicemen toted Ernest Hemingway’s Selected Short Stories; Jack London’s Sea-Wolf, White Fang, The Cruise of the Snark, and The Call of the Wild; and Voltaire’s Candide. Later editions of ASEs included Thomas Mann’s Selected Short Stories; Stefan Zweig’s The Royal Game; H. G. Wells’s The Time Machine, The Island of Dr. Moreau, The War of the Worlds, and The Food of the Giants; and Erich Maria Remarque’s The Arch of Triumph. What weapons could be more fitting for the liberation of a continent than the very books that had been banned and burned there?

  But the council did not end its work with the distribution of hundreds of thousands of ASEs in occupied Europe. It also considered what role it might play in the reintroduction of prohibited books in European nations that had been shackled by Nazi restrictions on their printing presses and bookshops. For years, books that fell within Germany’s ban were confiscated and destroyed, with no remuneration to publishers or store owners. Bookshelves were emptied of all works deemed antagonistic to Germany. Libraries were purged, and cherished books disappeared. The Nazis seized control of European printing presses and carefully monitored what was being printed. The sale or distribution of books published in the United States and Britain was forbidden. By 1944, an independent publishing industry was practically nonexistent in Europe—or, in the words of the United States Office of War Information (OWI), it was “shot to pieces.”

  Knowing the emaciated state of European publishing and book buying, the council considered the necessity of printing books for regions that had been deprived of American books since as early as 1939. In 1944, council members Stanley Rinehart of Farrar & Rinehart, William Sloane of Henry Holt & Co., and Marshall Best of the Viking Press had approached the OWI to inquire whether it had any interest in financing a project to translate American books and distribute them in Europe as soon as nations were freed from Nazi control. The OWI was receptive to collaborating with the council on this project, and the council assembled a list of one hundred of its ASE titles that had universal appeal. As the OWI would provide special funding for the creation of these “Overseas Editions” (OEs), the project had to be kept completely separate from the ASEs. Thus, a new branch of the council was formed—the Overseas Editions, Inc. (OEI).

  The OEs got off to a bumpy start. First, although the OWI approved the Overseas Editions in theory, it could not guarantee funding, so the project languished for months. When funds became available in August 1944, the project only sank deeper into a logistical morass. Many books needed to be translated into French and Italian—a step in production that proved incredibly time-consuming. Plus, to keep production costs to a minimum, the entire series had to be printed in one fell swoop. Thus, printing could not begin for the entire project until every last translation had been completed. When the manuscripts were finally ready to be printed, another problem arose regarding publication rights: publishers were uncertain whether their contracts with authors included the right to publish books for overseas use. At the eleventh hour, individual contracts were tweaked to account for overseas distribution.

  Finally, by February 1945, the first batch of OEs was shipped to Europe. They were compact (measuring four and three-quarters by six and three-eighths inches—about the same size as the larger ASEs) and rather bland-looking, but they nourished a book-starved Europe. The OWI was so pleased with the first batch of OEs that, in March 1945, it requested that the council print additional titles in German, Chinese, and Japanese. Funding problems once again plagued the project, resulting in no Chinese or Japanese translations. In the end, however, a total of seventy-two titles were printed and sold, including twenty-two in English, twenty-two in French, twenty-three in German, and five in Italian. Titles tended to center on an American perspective—Stephen Vincent Benét’s America, Catherine Drinker Bowen’s Yankee from Olympus, and J. C. Furnas’s How America Lives were among those printed.

  A total of 3,636,074 OEs were distributed in France, Belgium, Holland, Norway, Denmark, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Italy, North Africa, Syria, Turkey, Austria, and Greece. Although 3.6 million books were a drop in the bucket when compared to the estimated destruction of more than 100 million books in Europe by the Nazis, the production of the OEs at least began the reintroduction of American books in countries that had been deprived of them for years.

  It was not only the nations that fell under Nazi rule that reeled from a lack of books. Britain’s publishing industry had been decimated by the war, resulting in book shortages that kept shelves in book stores empty and rendered distribution of free reading material to members of the Royal Army and Navy impossible. Like their Yank counterparts, British soldiers yearned for books. As one U.S. Army lieutenant recalled, when his unit was stationed on a British troop transport and the Americans carried their library onboard—“a crate of ASE’s mounted on two oil drums”—the British troops gaped at the books and begged for the privilege of reading them. The lieutenant’s unit shared their ASEs, and “many of the English fellows shook their heads and marveled at how well taken care of the American soldier is.” Many British soldiers were left wondering: Why didn’t their government care for their morale needs by supplying paperback books?

  The main culprits were the early bombing of Britain’s publishing industry followed by severe paper rationing. The two strangled Britain’s printing capacity. Throughout 1940 and 1941, Germany had bombed Britain with abandon; residential neighborhoods, farmland, business districts—no place was immune. When German planes flew over London on December 29, 1940, they released their bomb loads on the warehouses and offices of Britain’s publishing companies, which were tucked together, “cheek by jowl, in a small area of the city, with Paternoster Row at its heart.” Seventeen firms were completely destroyed. Over one million books served as kindling for flames that stubbornly burned for hours. Overnight, London’s book world was obliterated.

  Next, paper rationing further constricted publishers, reducing their paper allotment to 37.5 percent of what they had used in 1938. Books grew scarce as demand soared. Bookshops could not keep books in stock. Publishers frantically scrapped traditional layouts, margin sizes, paper weight, typography, and binding: books were reconstructed to require the least amount of materials. Despite these measures, British publishers could not print enough books to sate the public’s hunger. The reason the Royal Army and Navy lacked books was because there simply were not enough of them to go around. Although Britain organized a book drive similar to the VBC, it collected an inadequate quantity of clunky hardcovers that were unsuitable for overseas service.

  The ASEs left a deep impression on the British servicemen who encountered them. One member of the Royal Air Force reported that the best stint of his lengthy military service occurred when he was stationed with an American fighting squadron. Each evening, he would “stroll into the mess, have a delicious chat or two,
. . . and, of course, come away with one or two . . . ‘super’ Service editions in my pocket, pressed upon me by one or three of my American friends with the exhortation to pass it on to the ‘Boys’ when I had finished.” The ASEs were one of the only things that had given his unit “many hours of deep satisfaction and cheer,” he said. He marveled at the council’s “superb piece of printing and distribution work; a thing, which, so far as I have seen since being overseas for nearly three years, doesn’t exist . . . from our own side.”

  Hospitals that cared for American and British soldiers were hotbeds of ASE generosity. One wounded British soldier recalled suffering from depression and uncertainty as he convalesced in a Burmese field hospital. “Humour was always at a premium in those gloomy days,” he said. Several injured Merrill’s Marauders (a U.S. Army special operations unit) in his ward, taking note of his dour spirit, passed Max Schulman’s The Feather Merchants down to his bed and urged him to read it. This book’s protagonist returns to the home front, expecting a hero’s welcome, only to be driven home on black-market gasoline and treated to a meal of hoarded foods. Even worse, his desk job did not make him a “real hero” in the eyes of his girlfriend. The book tells a hilarious story of everything going wrong. The British soldier could not help but chuckle and smile as he read it.

  British soldiers were desperate for ASEs, and British publishing firms heard an earful about how popular the American’s little paperbacks were. Already struggling to produce large numbers of books, publishers found the idea of printing miniature books like the ASEs irresistible. They would not be distributed free to British fighting forces, but in 1945, British publishers began selling paperback books that bore an uncanny resemblance to the ASE format. Costing as little as twopence, Bear, Hudson, Ltd., of London published Bear Pocket Books, and the W. H. Allen Company of London printed Allen Super Hurricanes. At a glance, the Bears and Hurricanes could easily be mistaken for ASEs—they were the same size, their front covers had a thumbnail image of the original cover design, they were bound by staples, their interior pages had two columns of text, and they were printed on lightweight paper. While the Bear Pocket Books were geared toward the British public, and their miniature size was attributed to rationing and supply shortages, the Hurricanes advertised their suitability for “those in the services—because they are well produced, handy in size,” and were “designed with the object of fitting the reader’s pocket—in two senses.” The council was gratified that its model had helped the floundering British book trade get back on its feet. Paper rationing in Britain would not be lifted until 1949.

  During the spring of 1945, the Allies crept closer to Berlin and spirits soared on the home front as victory in Europe seemed a certainty. But on April 12, 1945, Franklin Delano Roosevelt died after a severe decline in health, which had been largely kept from public knowledge. This loss was felt around the world. As Corporal Frank Slechta, an armorer with the Eighth Air Force, said, “It wasn’t like just another politician dying; it was like losing a friend.” “We’ve lost a great leader,” seconded Corporal Louis F. Schier, of an armored field artillery unit, “and I know what that is from combat.” He explained: “When I was in France, there was a major in charge of the task force that we all respected and followed. I was just a hundred yards away from him when he was killed by a machine-pistol, and after that it was pretty tough getting ourselves together. It’s the same case with FDR.” Private Morris Kravitz, a rifleman with the Twenty-Eighth Division, said: “I’ve seen men die at the front, and it just didn’t affect me like this.” As they mourned, the tragedy inspired a sense of resilience and purpose. In the words of First Lieutenant Walter J. Hinton, “I suppose the Nazis were glad to hear of his death, but we will fight all the harder to show them how we feel about it.”

  On the heels of FDR’s death came the news that Joseph Goebbels and Adolf Hitler had committed suicide. Despite the collapse of its leadership and the destruction of its cities by intense Allied bombings, Germany’s soldiers continued fighting. It took days before President Harry S. Truman was able to announce, on May 8, 1945, that Germany had officially surrendered and the “flags of freedom fly all over Europe.” But he reminded Americans that the victory was only half won, for while the “West is free . . . the East is still in bondage to the treacherous tyranny of the Japanese.”

  While it might seem obvious that the Allied soldiers in Europe would be shipped to the Pacific when Germany surrendered, many Americans who served in Europe operated under the illusion that they would be discharged upon V-E Day. Publications such as Yank, the Army Weekly had published stories throughout 1944 discussing the Army and Navy’s post-victory demobilization plans. These articles created the false hope of an imminent homecoming. The harsh reality was that much of the Army in Europe would return home only after paying the Japanese a visit. Instead of demobilization, the armed forces in Europe faced redeployment.

  On May 10, the Army announced that, of its 3.5 million men in Europe, 3.1 million were destined for the Pacific, and the remaining 400,000 would stay in Europe as reoccupation forces. Only a minority of those in the Army would be discharged. The Navy announced that it expected virtually no reduction of forces. As an Army spokesperson explained, to discharge those who fought in Europe rather than redeploy them to the Pacific would be like fighting with one hand. To defeat Japan, the Allies would need to unleash their full force on the Pacific to issue a final, decisive blow.

  The Army and Navy tried to soften the news of redeployment by offering rest periods in the Pacific or furloughs in the United States between engagements, but these promises had little impact on the bitter feelings many servicemen harbored. As Private First Class Justin Gray explained in Yank: “Relief periods in the Pacific have meant little more than being stuck on some God-forsaken island far from anything that resembles Western civilization.” In fact, he knew of one unlucky unit that was sent to a “rest camp” only to find themselves “in coconut groves, [with] tents and lumber” and orders to build the rest area. They did not complete construction before being called back to the front. “Just like that old favorite of ours, ‘Sad Sack,’ we’ll just wait for rest until we get back to our foxholes,” a sergeant griped. The home front shared a gloomy outlook on redeployment. “Those who are to be shipped directly to the Pacific will not relish the thought,” one newspaper explained. “They have fought one war; they think their job is done.” Servicemen who were permitted to return home before being redeployed fared no better. They would enjoy a happy homecoming only to be wrested from their families two or three weeks later so they could serve another tour of duty. Besides, having cheated death once in Europe, many lost hope of being lucky enough to do it again, especially in the Pacific.

  Reading of island warfare in their newspapers and magazines, soldiers in Europe were well aware of the notorious reputation of the Pacific battles. As the Allies’ island-hopping campaign drew closer to Japan, the fighting seemed to only grow more intense. Preferring death to surrender, Japanese soldiers fought to the last man. This prolonged even the most futile battles and sent casualty rates skyward. The fight for Iwo Jima, which ended just before Germany’s surrender, was described as the bitterest battle in Marine Corps history, and co-commander Lieutenant General Holland M. Smith said that never in the 168 years’ history of the Marines had their motto, Semper Fidelis (always faithful), “been tried or challenged so greatly.” It was the only Marine battle in which American casualties exceeded Japan’s. As redeployment loomed, the fight for Okinawa raged. Engaged in “hand-to-hand fighting, blasting the Japanese out of caves with grenades or burning them out with flame-throwers,” the “going was tough and slow,” the New York Times reported. While Americans adopted rhyming mantras for when they expected to return home, those who served in the Pacific kept pushing the date back. “Home alive in ’45” turned into “Out of the sticks in ’46,” and then to “Hell to Heaven in ’47,” only to be followed by “Golden Gate in ’48.” Others were not hopeful that they
would ever return home.

  Although morale was severely challenged in the island battles, the Pacific theater, especially in the later years of the war, was not devoid of amusements for those out of the line of fire. Few newspapers and magazines gave credit to the important work done by the Special Services Division on behalf of the servicemen deployed in these remote regions. Once an area was secured, servicemen were given wide latitude to Americanize the islands to the extent possible. They built baseball diamonds “set in jungle glades to the specifications of Abner Doubleday,” and signs were posted next to ponds or lakes used for swimming, reading “Jones Beach,” or “Old Swimmin’ Hole.” By 1944, Guadalcanal was unrecognizable to those who had landed there in 1942: vegetables grew on former battlefields, an ice-cream factory churned out two hundred quarts of ice cream a day, hundreds of musical instruments were available for playing, 150 movie theaters (consisting of “coconut logs or oil drums in front of an outdoor screen”) showed C-grade films, and athletic venues hosted boxing matches and other sports contests. Across the Mariana Islands, theater stages were built, volleyball and basketball courts were erected, boxing rings were installed, and thousands of radios were distributed.

  But radio was a double-edged sword. It allowed the men to listen to their favorite music and hear the news, but just as Europe had Axis Sally, the Pacific had its own favorite propagandist: Tokyo Rose, a persona attributed to Iva Toguri, an American citizen living in Japan. Rose’s broadcasts were rarely of the caliber of Axis Sally’s hauntingly accurate and unsettling pronouncements, but she had her moments. She always seemed to have credible information on American casualties, and her manner of delivering this news was cruel. “Well, you boys in Moresby, how did you like that ack-ack last night over Rabaul?” she asked during one broadcast. “Your communiqué didn’t say anything about losing those two Fortresses, did it? But you fellows know, don’t you? You know what did not come back,” she taunted.