Once There Was a War Book

For six months, June through December 1943, John Steinbeck worked as a war correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune. He relayed daily dispatches to them. He was forty one. He was a celebrity, given the popularity of The Grapes of Wrath. Deemed a security risk by the Air Force for his so-called "communist views", he sought another way to participate in the war. He had patriotic sentiments, and he wanted to see the action.

These dispatches are collected in this book, published after the war in 1958. The dispatches were written quickly; they were written to meet deadlines. They were censored by the military and remain so here in the book format. They were written to capture the experiences of the men and the women actually fighting the war--how it looked, sounded and felt, even the smells filling their nostrils are described. What is recorded here are not the words of national and military leaders or army commanders. We are not given a recount of campaign strategies or troop movements.

Steinbeck did not fight; he listened to those doing the fighting; he observed, joked and talked with them. He had access to their mess halls. Through Steinbeck's words readers are given a close up view of common soldiers' experiences'embarking on and disembarking from troop ships, of waiting and waiting and waiting for orders. The soldiers, each with a helmet on their head loose their identity; they are one of a mass, one of a group following orders.

We follow the men to unidentified places--"somewhere in England", "somewhere in the Mediterranean war theater", to bomber stations, to coast batteries, to minesweeper operations. We are there alongside a bombing crew. We are in London during the Blitz, in Italy and unspecified places in Northern Africa. Algiers and the Italian island Ventotene are specifically mentioned.

We observe the frantic search for lost good luck medallions, the soldiers' attachment to barrack pets, the miscommunication between American and British soldiers and the men's anxiety, fear and homesickness.

The tone and the writing style of the articles vary. Some are poignant, movingly capturing soldiers' emotions. Others are amusing and light. For example, we are told of an inebriated pet goat, of a captain who would not let himself be promoted, of the ubiquitous poster pin-up girls adorning barrack walls, the movies shown and the songs sung. Some incidents are so absurd they stretch believability'the men swear an elf appeared, but of course they were at the time drunk. Most everybody who has read of the war will have heard some of these stories before.

Liking some chapters more and others less, I have given the collection as a whole three stars. I can't say I learned terribly much, but I don't regret reading the book because Steinbeck's prose is good.

Lloyd James reads the audiobook wonderfully. The listener hears every word. He knows when to pause. He varies his intonations to fit those speaking and the situations that arise. Five stars to the narration.

********************
Steinbeck's books in order of preference :
*Of Mice and Men 5 stars
*The Grapes of Wrath 5 stars
*In Dubious Battle 4 stars
*The Wayward Bus 4 stars
*Travels with Charley: In Search of America 4 stars
*The Moon Is Down 4 stars
*Cannery Row 4 stars
*Once There Was a War 3 stars
*The Winter of Our Discontent 3 stars
*A Russian Journal 3 stars
*The Pearl 3 stars
*Sweet Thursday 2 stars
*To a God Unknown 2 stars
*East of Eden 2 stars
*The Red Pony TBR
*The Pastures of Heaven TBR

War Correspondents
*Train to Nowhere: One Woman's War, Ambulance Driver, Reporter, Liberator 5 stars by Anita Leslie
* In Extremis: The Life of War Correspondent Marie Colvin 4 stars by Lindsey Hilsum
*The View from the Ground 4 stars by Martha Gellhorn
*The Face of War 4 stars by Martha Gellhorn