When Books Went to War

 

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Copies of this volume are available at the Denison and Sherman Libraries.

028.909 MANNING

When Books Went to War by Molly Guptill Manning:

This volume discusses the impact that books published under the banner of "Armed Services Editions" had on soldiers. These books were originally in direct response to reports of book burning under the Nazi Germany government, in attempt to eradicate any ideas that did not fit their ideals of the German race's superiority. In Nazi Germany, at that time, before the implementation of the "Final Solution", ideas were the focus and among those books burned were books by Jewish writers, although those weren't the only ones that were put in the bonfire.

The other factor was that, in the previous two wars, The Civil War and The Great War (later known as World War I), books  had had some limited success in boosting morale of the troops by supplying them with reading material to alleviate the monotony and loneliness that accompanied soldiers while engaged in combat.

Prior to the start of U.S. involvement in the already ongoing war, America's troops only amounted to less than 200,000 soldiers.  But with the looming threat of the necessity to become involved, the administration instituted a draft.  This meant that the available manpower was going to increase dramatically.  Some librarians already knew how much books improved morale and initiated book drives to get the public to donate books. 

However, despite a good start, many citizens interests in the project gradually waned.  With the goal of collecting 10 million books falling short, it became apparent that other measures were needed to supply the troops with recreational reading. One of the ways was getting the President and the First Lady behind the effort.  And yet, still, some other avenues became necessary.

Essentially, what happened is that a government organization was formed, and with the efforts of publishers nationwide, portable versions of books were printed to be given to troops. Over the course of time, some of those books kept the drive to continue in the day-to-day battle to stay firm. Some of the soldiers even were able to write the authors of those books about how much their work inspired them, and the authors often wrote letters back to the soldiers. (One of those books, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn appears to have been a particular favorite.  The author, Betty Smith, often received as many as four letters a day from soldiers and responded to many of them.

At the end of the book, Manning includes a complete list of those books that had been used in the program. They include novels, westerns, mysteries and educational tomes (history and the like). Check it out if you like WWII history or like me, just love books.

Until next time, happy browsing.

Quiggy

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