When Books Went to War (13 page)

 

Over the course of the war, the ASEs' ability to shore up exhausted, disgusted, weary soldiers would be tested time and again—and the men who were counting on them were rarely disappointed. As the summer of 1944 approached, the council's mission to provide morale-boosting books would be tried like never before. The Allies were poised to wage one of the most elaborate and long-awaited offensive attacks of the war.

SIX

I've just been told that over 3,000 of our American boys died in the first eleven days of the invasion of France.

Who died? I'll tell you who died.

Not so many years ago, there was a little boy sleeping in his crib. In the night, it thundered and lightninged. He woke and cried out in fear. His mother came and fixed his blankets better and said, “Don't cry. Nothing will ever hurt you.”

He died . . .

There was another kid with a new bicycle. When he came past your house he rode no-hands while he folded the evening paper in a block and threw it against your door. You used to jump when you heard the bang. You said, “Some day, I'm going to give that kid a good talking-to.” He died.

Then there were two kids. One said to the other, “I'll do all the talking. I just want you to come along to give me nerve.” They came to your door. The one who had promised to do all the talking said, “Would you like your lawn mowed, Mister?”

They died together. They gave each other nerve . . .

They all died.

And I don't know how any one of us here at home can sleep peacefully tonight unless we are sure in our hearts that we have done our part all the way along the line.

 

—
BETTY SMITH, “WHO DIED?” JULY
9, 1944

 

B
Y THE END
of 1943, the question was not if, but where and when, the Allies would launch an attack on Western Europe. Germany faced a three-front war and a huge territory to defend. The Eastern Front, which ran through Russia, spanned two thousand kilometers. The Mediterranean Front, which spread across Africa and Europe, was nearly three thousand kilometers long. And in Western Europe, German troops faced a six-thousand-kilometer front to protect.
As thousands of Americans prepared for this deadly venture, they tucked ASEs into breast and hip pockets.

In the meantime, Hitler prepared for the invasion by directing his propaganda machine at the American servicemen. One of Germany's greatest weapons came in the form of an American voice. Mildred Gillars, whom servicemen affectionately referred to as Axis Sally or the Berlin Bitch, was a Maine-born expat living in Berlin. When the war broke out, she became an on-air host for Reichsradio and immediately gained popularity among the men; they liked her American accent, her seductive tone, and the popular music she played. But behind her voice and music was a program designed to discourage those who listened. “Hello, Gang. This is Midge, calling the American Expeditionary Forces in the four corners of the world tonight,” one program began. Playing off the name of a popular song, she said: “Well, kids, you know I'd like to say to you ‘Pack Up Your Troubles In Your Old Kit Bag,' but I know that that little old kit bag is much too small to hold all the trouble you kids have got . . . There's no getting the Germans down.” Although the program was laced with propaganda, it was usually transparent enough for the men to laugh it off. Yet Axis Sally, from time to time, disclosed uncanny intelligence information that disturbed even the most steadfast listeners. One night she said, “Hello to the men of Company E, 506th PIR, 101st A/B in Aldbourne. Hope you boys enjoyed your passes to London last weekend. Oh, by the way, please tell the town officials that the clock on the church is three minutes slow.” Her information was spot-on. As much as Americans enjoyed Sally's music, they were eager to put an end to her gibes.

The details for the invasion of France were settled by the spring of 1944. The battle would begin at night with an Allied all-out aerial and naval assault to batter the German emplacements along the French coast while creating craters in the beaches that the infantry would later use for protection. American and British paratroopers would land behind the zone of bombardment, and would secure various bridges and landmarks to facilitate the massive land invasion that would occur later that morning. Naval gunfire aimed at the beaches and fortifications would stop five minutes before an armada of LCTs (Landing Craft Tanks) made their way ashore, carrying tanks, all manner of weapons, and infantrymen. Army engineers and light artillery would accompany the first wave of infantry, and would be followed by additional waves of men and supplies.
Each segment of the attack was choreographed and timed down to the minute. The elaborate plan required complete cooperation among the Allied nations participating, as well as between the naval, air, and ground forces so that each element was executed in time for the next component to commence.

The likelihood of survival seemed to lessen as the men learned more information about the dangers they would face. One private recalled that when his company was briefed on the invasion, they were told the first wave could expect 30 percent casualties and “we were them!” Considering the dangers that awaited, many believed casualties would run even higher. As one historian explained: “The GI hitting the beach in the first wave at Omaha Beach would have to get through the minefields in the Channel without his LST [Landing Ship Tank] blowing up, then get from ship to shore . . . [while] taking fire from inland batteries, then work his way through an obstacle-studded tidal flat of some 150 meters crisscrossed by machine-gun and rifle fire, with big shells whistling by and mortars all around.” Next, the GI would be “caught in a triple crossfire—machine guns and heavy artillery from the sides, small arms from the front, mortars coming down from above.” Barbed wire and mines (the Germans laid 6.5 million mines in the beaches and bluffs) awaited the GIs who survived the landing and headed across the beach.
The men would need nerves of steel and unfathomable courage.

 

Under the leadership of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the plans for D-day were formally set into motion beginning on May 31, 1944, with the expectation that the invasion would occur on June 5. In the final days leading to the boarding of the landing craft, the men readied themselves. They crammed into their packs dozens of pounds of ammunition, provisions, extra weapons, and other necessities. Although the recommendation was that the men not bring more than forty-four pounds of equipment, it was estimated that some men weighed at least three hundred pounds as they waddled under the weight of their packs.

Because the invasion could only occur in clear weather, an exact date was not set until the eve of battle. Knowing some men would have a long wait between arriving in England and the start of the invasion, the Army Special Services Division grew concerned about keeping morale elevated as servicemen bided their time. At least initially, many men remained in good spirits as they waited for action. Even when they learned they would have to rub foul-smelling impregnating grease on their uniforms to be impervious to a possible mustard gas attack, the men took it in stride. A war correspondent for the
New Yorker
reported that when one sailor noticed he was being watched as he greased his shoes, he jokingly called out, “This is the first time I ever tried to get a pair of shoes pregnant, sir.”

“No doubt you tried it on about everything else,” another sailor retorted as he, too, worked on his shoes.
As the invasion neared, moments of levity were fleeting.

General Eisenhower took an especial interest in the morale of his troops. As he noted in his own memoirs, “morale, given rough equality to other things, is supreme on the battlefield.” Eisenhower was known to read western novels to relax and relieve stress, and the men who would be doing the fighting deserved no less. Anticipating the time it would take to assemble all of the men needed for the mission, and the boredom and anxiety associated with the chore of waiting, General Eisenhower's staff had approved a recommendation from the Special Services Division to distribute ASEs in the marshaling areas—one book per person.
When the C- and D-series were shipped to the Army and Navy, approximately eight thousand sets of each were reserved specifically for those who would participate in the D-day invasion. Among the books included in these series were:
The Selected Short Stories of Stephen Vincent Benét
, Charles Courtney's
Unlocking Adventure
, Lloyd C. Douglas's bestseller
The Robe
, Esther Forbes's
Paul Revere and the World He Lived In
, John P. Marquand's
So Little Time
, Joseph Mitchell's
McSorley's Wonderful Saloon
, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings's
Cross Creek
, Betty Smith's
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
, Charles Spalding and Otis Carney's
Love at First Flight
, Booth Tarkington's
Penrod
, and Mark Twain's
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
and
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
. Dozens of other titles joined the men on the shore of the English Channel.

Since all details of the D-day assault phase were kept secret, the council had no knowledge of the Special Services' plan to saturate the marshaling areas with ASEs. In fact, in late May 1944, the council was concerned that ASEs were “pil[ing] up in the warehouses and shipment to the Army and Navy was delayed.” Some council members worried that this buildup of books indicated a lack of interest in the ASEs. It was a great relief when the council later learned that the imminent invasion of Normandy was the explanation, and that the Army had actually considered books so important to morale that they had earmarked almost a million for the men boarding transports.

Prior to the invasion, the Special Services blanketed the shores of Great Britain with some of the soldiers' favorite items. Packs of cigarettes were shoved into pockets, candy bars were grabbed by the handful, but of all things, the most sought-after item was the ASEs. As one Special Services officer recalled, palpable tension mounted in the staging areas, and books were the only thing available that “provided sorely needed distraction to a great many men.” When the loading process finally began, many men, realizing how much weight they were carrying, stopped to unburden themselves of unnecessary items near the docking area. The ground was littered with a variety of objects, but among the heaps of discarded inessentials, “very few Armed Services Editions were found by the clean-up squads that later went through the areas.” Weighing as little as a couple of ounces each, ASEs were the lightest weapon that the men could bring along.

After all were aboard, the ships had nowhere to go—the troops would await orders from General Eisenhower, who wanted to be certain that the weather, moon, tide, and time of sunrise were aligned in the Allies' favor before announcing the attack. In the meantime, there was little for the men to do but worry, pray, or read. Silence pervaded. A rosary could be seen in many a hand. According to one man, “Priests were in their heyday. I even saw Jews go and take communion. Everybody [was] scared to death.” It did not help matters when the men caught another Axis Sally broadcast and she assured them, “We are waiting for you.” Almost everyone was anxious to get going.

On the morning of June 4, the first vessels began to move out into the English Channel. Yet the weather soon deteriorated, with drizzle turning into a cold, hard rain. The LCIs (Landing Craft Infantry) and LCTs offered no shelter; the men aboard were thrown this way and that as their uniforms became soaked, and the waters more turbulent. The conditions were perfectly miserable. Things only grew worse for the troops when General Eisenhower was forced to postpone the invasion for a day because of the poor weather. An impenetrable cloud cover made a bombing campaign impossible for the air forces. Holding their positions, the flat-bottomed transports quaked in the churning waters; many men turned greener with seasickness by the minute as they waited. (When they finally made it to France and beheld the dead bodies of those who arrived before them, one man could not help but remark, “Them lucky bastards—they ain't seasick no more.”
) Others were anchored in harbors or up rivers; no one was allowed to leave their crowded transport. They just cursed, vomited, and waited.

Conditions grew grim aboard the landing craft. Even years later, many men would recall the nauseating combination of the smell of diesel oil, backed-up toilets, and vomit that wafted across the decks. Some men listened to the radio to try to pass the time, but when they caught another Axis Sally broadcast, they soon preferred silence. She had taken the liberty of refashioning the lyrics to the popular song “I Double Dare You” into a chilling threat about the invasion: “I double dare you to come over here. I double dare you to venture too near. Take off your high hat and quit that bragging. Cut out that claptrap and keep your hair on. Can't you take a dare on?”

Thank God for the ASEs. According to one second lieutenant, “so many [were] insensible to discomfort because of their interest” in what they were reading. A. J. Liebling, a war correspondent for the
New Yorker
, observed how the ASEs eased boredom and anxiety as the men waited for action. He saw members of the First Division “spread all over the LCIL . . . most of them reading paper-cover, armed-services editions of books.” So calm were the men of the First Division that Liebling commented that they appeared to be going on just another practice run, and not a deadly invasion. As one infantryman told Liebling: “These little books are a great thing. They take you away.”