Best wartime reads focus on areas other than battles

As a child, I recall my brother and father watching WWII movies, “The Big Red One” being one of their favorites. They liked to jokingly call it “The Big RED One,” instead of the “Big Red ONE.” I couldn’t have been less interested.

The war movies of my childhood were primarily about men. If there were any women characters at all, they were merely “skirts” or “broads” to chase. The films were violent and, frankly, simplistic. There was an emphasis on the physical conflict between armies, and none of the characters or events were nuanced in any way. There were “good guys” (the Allies) and “bad guys” (the Axis powers). No thank you.

But something changed. For me, it started with “Das Boot” in 1981. This film depicts sailors aboard a German U-boat patrolling the Atlantic in 1941. Although the characters are “the enemy,” they are portrayed as human, complex, and sympathetic. The film shows not only tense scenes of battle, but also the mundane and tedious lulls between battles.

Most good movies are based on excellent books. This is true of most popular WWII movies. Fortunately, many of the titles from the last decade that are set during the war feature aspects of the war other than battles and some with female protagonists.

One highly acclaimed title is Erik Larson’s “The Splendid and the Vile,” which focuses on Churchill’s first year as Prime Minister and the effects the war has on his family as well as the British people. The book opens on Churchill’s first day as Prime Minister and recounts the devastating year that follows.

As with all of Larson’s immensely readable works, “The Splendid and the Vile” recreates both public and private scenes based on meticulous research and interviews. This particular book details not only Churchill’s incredible leadership, but also the importance and influence of the women around him, specifically his wife, Clemmy, and his daughter Mary.

Larson’s “In the Garden of the Beasts” recounts the rise of the Third Reich and the build-up to the war from inside Berlin. The book focuses on the first US ambassador to Nazi Germany and his party- and uniform-loving daughter.

One of my favorite wartime stories is “The Woman Who Smashed Codes” by Jason Fagone. Elizebeth Friedman, the mother of modern cryptography and cryptoanalysis, first became indispensable to the government when she went to work breaking codes used by smugglers during Prohibition. When the war broke out, she went to work decoding enemy messages, including those produced by the “unbreakable” Nazi code machine, Enigma—using just pencil and paper.

Friedman’s work was forgotten for decades because J. Edgar Hoover claimed her accomplishments for his own agents, and Friedman herself often allowed her work to be attributed to her cryptologist husband, William.

“The Girls of Atomic City” by Denise Kiernan focuses not on just one person, but on many of the women who helped create a community in a secret government facility set on a muddy clearing in a Tennessee forest. They had dangerous and dirty jobs, and although they weren’t told what exactly they were working on, many of them figured it out themselves. They were helping to create the uranium that would go into the world’s first nuclear weapons.

My most recent wartime read is “A Covert Affair” by Jennet Conant. The cover features Julia and Paul Child and suggests that the book is about their time in the OSS—the precursor to the CIA—and the FBI investigation of Paul. However, the book is primarily about Jane Foster, a socialite heiress and artist from California.

The book is a fascinating account of Foster’s bohemian life and her wartime work for the OSS. She was in the propaganda division. She made friends with Julia and Paul while they were all stationed in Ceylon and later in China. She also lived in Paris at the same time as the Childs and socialized with them.

It was because of this long friendship that Paul came under suspicion as Jane had been accused of spying by another American spy. The book does go into detail about how Paul responded to the investigation and fought to have his name cleared, eventually succeeding.

Although the book is not really what is advertised either on the cover or on Amazon, it is still an interesting read. It gives a detailed look at the work of the OSS during the war and a cogent explanation of how Europe’s insistence on returning to colonial dominance of Asia after the war led to the expansion of communism in the region and the conflicts that followed.

John Wayne and “The Big Red One” notwithstanding, I am now a fan of books and movies about WWII.