And Yet We Got On

By Ernie Pyle Scripps-Howard Wire Service June 12, 1944 NORMANDY BEACHHEAD—(by wireless)—Due to a last-minute alteration in the arrangements, I didn’t arrive on the beachhead until the morning after D-day, after our first wave of assault troops had hit the shore. By...

Hope and Glory

By Pauline Kael The New Yorker October 5, 1987 It’s hard to believe that a great comedy could be made of the blitz, but John Boorman has done it. In his new, autobiographical film, Hope and Glory, he has had the inspiration to desentimentalize wartime England and show...

My Father’s War

By Peter Richmond GQ December 1993 It’s a reflex action. I kick the grenade without thinking. My brain shouts out in panic, but it’s too late. The grenade feels heavy against the toe of my boot. l see that the pin is missing. I can hear the sound it makes as it rolls...

Dispatch From Normandy

By Ernie Pyle Scripps-Howard Wire Service July 13, 1944 IN NORMANDY—(by wireless)—Lieut. Orion Shockley came over with a map and explained to us just what his company was going to do. There was a German strong point of pillboxes and machine-gun nests about half a mile...

A Sportswriter Goes to War

By Alex Belth Introduction from Southwest Passage 2013 When he went off to cover the war in the Pacific in January 1943, John Lardner was twenty-nine years old and, thanks to his weekly column in Newsweek, already a major figure in sportswriting. Nothing at Madison...