Just One Catch (78 page)

Once airborne over the ocean
: For details of the overseas journey, I have drawn upon George and George,
Georgio Italiano.

“[In Algeria], I shared a tent with a medical assistant”
: Heller,
Closing Time,
p. 224. Philip Marchand cites Heller's admission that the character of Singer in
Closing Time
is based on him in “Joseph Heller Looks Back with Fondness,”
Toronto Star,
April 7, 1998.

a sign on the outskirts of the field
: For a photograph of this sign, see “The 489th Bombardment Group in Corsica,” posted at
warwingsart.com/12thAirForce/page.html
.

“Capt. Winebrenner”
: Daniel Setzer, “Historical Sources for the Events in Joseph Heller's Novel,
Catch-22
,” p. 27; posted at
home.comcast.net/~dhsetzer
.

“[T]he sound of a .45 discharging”
: Dominique Taddei,
U.S.S. Corsica, L'ile porte-avions
(Ajaccio, Corsica: Albiana, 2003), p. 95.

“A few practice shots”
: Setzer, “Historical Sources for the Events in Joseph Heller's Novel,
Catch
-
22,
” p. 18.

“something of a tireless wonder”
: Heller,
Now and Then,
p. 174.

“symptoms of fear”
: ibid., p. 175.

“Word is going around”
: Setzer, “Historical Sources for the Events in Joseph Heller's Novel,
Catch-22,
” p. 55.

ibid., p. 56.

“I wanted to see what was happening”
: “World War II Writers Symposium,” p. 161.

“[The] smell of romance”
: ibid., p. 179.

“I saw it as a war of necessity”
: ibid., p. 186.

“Medium level bombing of bridges”
: This and all subsequent quotes taken from the “History [of the] 488th Bombardment Squadron, 340th Bombardment Group” are from a copy of the document sent to the author by Daniel Setzer.

“People think it's a joke”
: “World War II Writers Symposium,” p. 150.

“had dysentery all the time”
: ibid., p. 146.

“[H]alf the squadron was inundated”
: Setzer, “Historical Sources for the Events in Joseph Heller's Novel,
Catch-22,
” p. 32.

“Seven planes [were holed]”; “Vandermuelen died”
: ibid., p. 45.

“I'm cold”
: Heller,
Now and Then,
p. 178.

“sickly attempts”
: ibid.

“Ferrara … had [already] assumed in my memory”
;
“They were trying to kill me”
: ibid., pp. 178, 181.

“This period was one of ordinary activity”
: Daniel Setzer, “Raid on the Settimo Road Bridges,” p. 22. Setzer's article is based on Roger Juglair and Silvana Miniotti,
Ponte San Martino: Martirio di un paese valdostano.
Setzer's translation of Juglair and Miniotti's account, along with his additional research and commentary, is the most detailed English-language version of what happened at Pont-Saint-Martin. It is posted online at
http://home.comcast.net/~dhsetzer/Settimo.pdf
.

“I'm not aware of any of our consciences ever being bothered
”: “World War II Writers Symposium,” p. 162.

“bombing a totally undefended village”
;
“Dunbar … dropped his bombs”
: Joseph Heller,
Catch-22
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1961), pp. 325, 330.

“men [were] … apprehensive”
: Setzer, “Historical Sources for the Events in Joseph Heller's Novel,
Catch-22,
” pp. 48–49.

“The first American soldiers [marched into] Rome”
: Heller,
Now and Then,
p. 176.

“[F]ellow fliers were coming back from Rome”
: Joseph Heller, rough draft of “Innocents Abroad,” p. 16, Joseph Heller Archive.

“most valuable phrase”
: ibid.

“[We]
had horse-drawn cabs
”: ibid.

“On the second day of my first leave there”
: Heller,
Closing Time,
pp. 229–30.

“Killing time between meals”
: This and all subsequent quotes about Rome are taken from Heller, rough draft of “Innocents Abroad,” pp. 16–21.

“Once upon a time”
: For this and other details about the legend of the Lucky Little Bell of San Michele, see “The 57th Fighter Group: The Lucky Little Bell of San Michele,” posted at
warwingsart.com/12thAirForce/luckybell.html
.

“Because we carried no bombs”
;
“It's okay,”
: Heller,
Now and Then,
pp. 184–85.

“I have not been able to get an answer”
: Daniel Setzer in an e-mail to the author, July 9, 2009.

“Many of the crews”
: This and subsequent War Diary entries cited in Setzer, “Historical Sources for the Events in Joseph Heller's Novel,
Catch-22,
” p. 58.

“two chaste beginners”
;
“huge and invisible divide”
: Heller,
Now and Then,
pp. 169, 185.

“There were flies in inflamed eyes”
: This and all subsequent quotes about Cairo, Naples, and shipboard experiences are taken from Heller, rough draft of “Innocents Abroad,” pp. 24–25, 30–31.

5. “I DON'T LOVE YOU ANY MORE”

“[T[here were[n't] many young men who came out of World War II”
: “World War II Writers Symposium” at the University of South Carolina, April 12–14, 1995, in
Dictionary of Literary Biography Yearbook 1995,
ed. Matthew Bruccoli (Farmington Hills, MI: Thompson Gale, 1996), p. 180.

His flight record for March 1945
: Joseph Heller, individual flight record, March 1945: Joseph Heller Archive, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Thomas Cooper Library, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina.

“great number”
: This and subsequent quotes about the returnees are from History of the
2533
rd AAF Base Unit (Pilot School, Prim-Basic) at Goodfellow Field, San Angelo, Texas, p. 46.

“name band”
:
Flight Time
3, no. 46 (1945): 2.

“courtesy patrols”
;
“military discipline of personnel at this station”
: ibid., 63.

“My mother got cold feet”
: This and subsequent comments about her parents are from Erica Heller in an e-mail to the author, May 31, 2009.

“Trains that made stops at most every small town”
: David Wood in an e-mail to the author, June 3, 2009.

“It was Shirley's mother who [really] took the initiative”
: Joseph Heller,
Now and Then: From Coney Island to Here
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998), p. 197.

“V-E Day”
: Michael Dorman and DeQuendre Neeley, “New Yorkers Remember V-E Day,” posted at
chicagotribune.com/topic/ny-history-ww2ved2,0,1025579.story
.

“without foundation”
:
Flight Time
3, no. 28 (1945): 2.

“The State Department has made public”
:
Flight Time
3, no. 46 (1945): 2.

Later, he claimed he left Texas in mid-May
: Heller,
Now and Then,
pp. 55–56; “World War II Writers Symposium,” p. 153.

Chad Dull
: Dull's opinion expressed in conversation with the author, Goodfellow Field, August 10, 2009.

“[One] weekend … an order arrived”
: Heller,
Now and Then,
pp. 55–56.

His individual flight record confirms
: Joseph Heller, individual flight record, May 14, 1945, Joseph Heller Archive.

“a spell of beautiful weather”
;
“passed away of attrition”
: Heller,
Now and Then
, pp. 55, 56.

“When we went
on the
Parachute Jump”
;
“felt with sadness”
: ibid., p. 57.

“Overnight, I was”
: ibid., p. 189.

“I cannot recall a single expression of outrage”
: “World War II Writers Symposium,” p. 168.

“I really honestly believe”
: ibid., p. 169.

“I was a very happy civilian”
;
“[O]nce we were in formation”
: ibid. pp. 161, 162.

“purposely” cruel
: This and all other quotes from “I Don't Love You Any More,” as well as Heller's comment in the contributor's notes from
Story
magazine, are in Heller,
Catch as Catch Can: The Collected Stories and Other Writings,
ed. Matthew J. Bruccoli and Park Bucker (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003), pp. 1–8.

“[I]t [was] based on things I knew nothing about”
;
“malign and histrionic”
;
“convention”
: Heller,
Now and Then,
p. 189.

“most appreciative audience”
: This and all other quotes from Barbara Gelb are taken from Adam Sorkin, ed.,
Conversations with Joseph Heller
(Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1993), pp. 189, 193, 198.

“very elegant, though understated”
: Dolores Karl in conversation with the author, April 24, 2009.

“privileged”
: Heller,
Now and Then,
p. 192.

“Dottie and Barney were an interesting couple”
: Jerome Taub in an e-mail to the author, January 8, 2010.

“knew the difference between sirloin steak and top sirloin”
: Heller,
Now and Then,
p. 205.

There was at all times a degree of competition”
: Israel Goldstein,
My World as a Jew,
vol. I (New York: Herzl Press, 1984), p. 261.

“initial step toward the definitive solution”; “sufferance ha[d] been the badge”
: ibid., pp. 170, 171.

“was a lot of drinking”; “one of Joe's relatives”
: Jerome Taub in an e-mail to the author, January 4, 2010.

“The motives for my decision”
: Heller,
Now and Then,
p. 193.

6. WORDS IN A BOX

“We feel compelled to say no to it”
: Ben Yagoda,
About Town: The New Yorker and the World It Made
(New York: Scribner, 2000), p. 235.

“He had been kept close to home while his father was alive”
: Joseph Heller, “World Full of Great Cities,” in
Catch as Catch Can: The Collected Stories and Other Writings,
ed. Matthew J. Bruccoli and Park Bucker (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003), p. 63.

David Seed notes the many direct echoes
: David Seed,
The Fiction of Joseph Heller: Against the Grain
(New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989), p. 14.

a “distaste for everything that had happened to him in the war”; “isn't fun any more”
: Ernest Hemingway, “Soldier's Home” and “The End of Something,” in
The Fifth Column and the First Forty-Nine Stories
(New York: P. F. Collier and Son, 1938), pp. 243, 208.

“wanted to do something for the United States”
;
“If your mother dies”
: Carey McWilliams, “Watts: The Forgotten Slum,”
The Nation,
August 30, 1965; posted at
thenation.com/doc/19650830/mcwilliams
.

“neon-lighted slum”
: This and subsequent quotes by Raymond Chandler are from David Wyatt,
Five Fires: Race, Catastrophe, and the Shaping of California
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 161–62.

“I wanted to find [things] out”
: Joseph Heller,
Now and Then: From Coney Island to Here
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998), p. 194.

“I am embarrassed to confess”
: ibid., p. 200.

“And thus a new weapon, the pure science method”
: Joseph Heller, “Bookies, Beware,” in
Catch as Catch Can
, ed. Bruccoli and Bucker, p. 11.

“fiction is not merely a diversion”
: letter from Joseph Heller to Whit Burnett, November 22, 1962, Archives of
Story
Magazine and
Story
Press, 1931–1999, Princeton University Manuscripts Division, Princeton University Library.

“I am wondering, too, if the treatment of a flier”
: letter from Whit Burnett to Joseph Heller, August 22, 1946, Archives of
Story
Magazine and
Story
Press.

“I [then] had thoughts of becoming a playwright”
: Heller,
Now and Then,
p. 202.

“held as sacred”
: ibid.

“I couldn't deny to myself that I really had an imagination”
: Charles Ruas,
Conversations with American Writers
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985), pp. 147–48.

“[H]e pointed out my faults to me”
: Heller,
Now and Then
, p. 208.

“wrote perfect short stories”
: ibid.

“a meager, short fellow”
: ibid.

“[H]e would sit down at his typewriter”
: ibid.

“[I]t's a pity … we [didn't] meet then”
: Joseph Heller, remarks made at the “1999 James Jones Literary Society Symposium,” Long Island University (Southampton campus), June 1999; posted at
jamesjonesliterarysociety.org/jheller.htm
.