RIP Paul Fussell
Author Paul Fussell has died at 88. I read only two things he wrote, but both of them were extraordinary.
The first was his magnum opus, the one that made him famous (at least in some circles), The Great War and Modern Memory. It came out in 1975 and I read it not long after. Even though that was many decades before my political conversion, it proves that, contrary to the old saying “you may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you,” I was always at least somewhat interested in learning about war (although I had zero interest in experiencing it).
Prior to reading Fussell’s book, I thought World War I was a very minor event, dwarfed by World War II. His book was an eye-opener, revealing not only the enormous scope of the war in terms of deaths in western Europe, but also its enormous effect on people’s perceptions of the world and their concept of mankind’s progress. The war introduced a profound cynicism and can be said to mark the beginning of the modern point of view.
The second work of Fussell’s that I read was his essay, “Thank God for the Atom Bomb.” The title was deliberately provocative, and the thesis Fussell advanced–that those who easily condemn the dropping of the atomic bomb by the US to end WWII have no idea what was really going on, and why–was highly unpopular among intellectuals. But Fussell didn’t march to any drummer but his own.
[NOTE: I wrote about Fussell’s atom bomb essay previously, here.]
In the Ken Burns documentary on World War II he stood out for his raw expression of the horror he experienced in combat. I admired him.
Who would have thought that you and I share the delight in what we regard as Fussell’s two best works.
I titled my first ‘zine after Fussell’s WW1 book.
His wife’s autobiography shows Fussell’s feet of clay extended at least to his waist.
I read his book ‘Class’, which I remember reading somewhere he later disowned.
http://www.amazon.com/Class-Through-American-Status-System/dp/0671792253/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1337905104&sr=1-4
I also read his ‘Thank God for the Atomic Bomb’. That basically condenses to dropping the bomb saved a lot of lives. More recently I read a book – Hell to Pay – by D.M. Giangreco:
http://www.amazon.com/Hell-Pay-Operation-Downfall-1945-1947/dp/1591143160/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1337905445&sr=1-1
which goes into great detail about our plans to invade Kyushu/Japan, and the Japanese plans to defend the island (they knew the exact beaches our troops would be landing on). And it confirms Fussell was right in his estimations that a great many more people would die without the bomb.
Ironically even if the invasion had gone forward (there was no chance the Japanese would have surrendered before) there was a contingency plan to drop whatever bombs were available inland on Kyushu, and given the extensive resources – weapons and troops – the Japanese were accumulating down there, we would have likely dropped everything we had before the bloodbath was over.
My Dad was to have taken part in the invasion and he always thought that it was a great idea – dropping the bomb when they did.
My father had a war career much like Fussell’s. Infantry platoon leader, pretty much beat up by VE Day, but would have been able to fog a mirror.
I will read his book on WW I, but there are a couple of items I’ve heard that put some nuance on WW II.
Not only was the Western Front an impact beyond belief when it was happening. An American writer in London ca 1921 said the city was suffused with grief and despair. People walked heads down, looking at the ground. Not like Masterpiece Theater which gives us lords, detectives, jumping clarinet music and the Jazz Age.
Additionally, WW I was the first war in which more men died in combat than of disease. Part of this was because they’d gotten a handle on field sanitation, but also sepsis. Antibiotics were twenty plus years ahead, but various treatments for infection and hospital protocols saved the lives of many guys who would have died “of wounds” which, strictly speaking, should not have killed them but did due to infection.
Many fewer of those in WW I. So many of the guys who, in earlier wars, would have been honored names on the memorials in the little towns were not. Cosmetic and reconstructive surgery were almost unheard of. The guy who would have been dead in an earlier war was your uncle in his upstairs bedroom unable to manage his own hygiene. He was the guy who took so achingly long to get on and off the bus. He was the guy who walked with the ruined side of his face to the wall, and crossed the street when he came back so he could do the same.
The French built resorts for guys so hideously mutilated that they wouldn’t come out in public.
All this, everybody knew, every day. And they knew none of it would have happened if the Germans had stayed home.
And, twenty-five years later, the bastards did it again.
Every WW II decision maker was a veteran of or an adult during WW I.
The lesson–the Versailles Treaty was too mild for these barbarians–was learned. Not only were the Germans not going to be allowed to do this again, neither were the Japanese.
IMO, this issue is insufficiently discussed when looking at WW II decisions.
Richard Aubrey: I don’t think you were watching the same Masterpiece Theater I was watching.
I remember this, in particular. Devastating.
According to French general Andre Beaufre, there was a wall at St-Cyr (their West Point) with the names of graduates who died in France’s wars, listed by date of class graduation.
For the class of 1914, the wall said simply “The class of 1914”
A book that makes a good companion piece to Fussell’s work, in terms of understanding what WWI did to the European psyche, is Erich Maria Remarque’s “The Road Back,” which is sort of a sequel to his “All Quiet on the Western Front.” I reviewed it here.
R.I.P., Paul. Truly sad & heavy of heart to see your post, N-Neocon. A Giant.
I’m gazing across my study to the shelf with his books. I’d add, for all, that “Wartime:Understanding and Behavior in the Second World War”,(Oxford,1988), is easily the best of its kind. All his eassays therein are the stuff that all G.I.’s knew–the regular slogging GI Joe culture–before they re-entered civilian/post-war life. One chapter,”Chickens**t, An Anatomy”, is particularly worthy of mention…The sheer pettiness & endless ‘small’ outrages that GIs suffered from higher-ups is a classic.
My Dad, S.Sgt. L.M.Stevens, was an engineer, crew chief and Group Inspector(Head Engineer)for the 462nd Hellbirds Grp of the 58th Bomb Wing of the 20th Air Force–CBI Theater & Tinian Island(West Field)after the Marianas were taken.
I shall always remember what the great novelist, Bill Styron recounted of his feelings when, as a young Marine on Saipan awaiting Invasion orders for the Japanese home islands when news of the A-Bombs came through:”Ecstacy. I felt ecstacy then and I feel it now(late 1990s).” Amen, Marine.
Anyone interested in the most thorough work on the subject of the Invasion Plans: “Downfall” by Richard B. Frank.
neo. I’m thinking of Lord Peter Wimsey. For example. Et al.
All the English Cosies put on film.
By the way, N-Neocon, if you’re interested in the unimaginable carnage of the First World War, take a trip through the absolute classic,”The First Day on the Somme”, by Martin Middlebrook(1971, Penguin). On July 1, 1916, the Brits suffered nearly 60-thousand casualties including 20-thousand killed. The battle lasted until December.
I read a book by Adm. Gallery a few years ago (“Eight Bells”, probably, or “Clear The Decks”) in which he stated that we didn’t have to use the bomb on the Japanese–we controlled the sea around and air over Japan, so we could have starved them into submission.
Think on that.
Some more.
I think you’ll agree the bombs were better. And better politically, too.
Sam L.
Sounds like the Morgenthau Plan writ large. Now, the Japanese had made themselves unpopular with all their enemies and sympathy might have been short into, say, 1946 But then?
Next question: The militarists would be eating okay. Always works that way. What do we do with islands full of dead people and some live generals?
Richard Aubrey,
You mean like the NorKs are doing now??
And Unpopular–like the Nanking massacre? Bataan Death March ?