World War II Memoirs

On the 80th anniversary of the war's end, 5 classic memoirs capture firsthand the shock, terror, and courage of the American fight against the Axis powers in Europe

"The emotional environment of warfare has always been compelling," writes J. Glenn Gray in his incomparable World War II memoir and mediation, The Warriors. "Reflection and calm reasoning are alien to it." The struggle to make sense of the experience of war, to find some meaning in the savagry and senseless destruction, animates the five brilliant and unforgettable memoirs gathered here.

• Company Commander (1947), by Charles B. MacDonald, describes with startling immediacy and candor the “cold, dirty, rough, frightened, miserable” life of the infantryman and company commander from the aftermath of D-Day in September 1944 through the war's terrifying final days.
• The Warriors (1959), by J. Glenn Gray, a counterintelligence officer who served in Italy, France, and Germany and a scholar with a PhD. in philosophy, is a sensitive and revelatory meditation on the nature of war and its effects on both soldiers and civilians, interspliced with his letters, journals, and wartime memories.
• All the Brave Promises (1966) is novelist Mary Lee Settle’s memoir of her year as an airfield radio operator in the Royal Air Force. Settle brilliantly evokes both the working-class culture of the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force’s “other ranks” and the petty and demeaning regimentation inherent in military life.
• The Fall of Fortresses (1980), by former B-17 navigator Elmer Bendiner, vividly recalls the fear and excitement he experienced flying bomber missions deep into Germany in 1943 without fighter escort.
• The Buffalo Saga (2009) is James Harden Daugherty’s heartfelt account of his frontline service as a Black soldier in the 92nd Infantry Division, as he fights the Germans, endures the harsh Italian winter, and confronts the racism of his own army.