George Will’s recent review of “The Guns at Last Light” – the last volume of Rick Atkinson’s trilogy on the liberation of Western Europe – described it as “history written at the level of literature.” I have not read it, but I’ve just finished the second volume, “The Day of Battle – The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944.” It should be required reading for America’s high school students.
World War II formed the attitudes, ideas and fables of four generations of Americans. Economically and militarily, WWII made the United States into the world’s only superpower; however, much of our ascent resulted not just from our efforts, but also from the elimination of the competition. The war destroyed much of western and central Europe physically, intellectually and economically.
Narrative histories are the most interesting books; they link the people, events and circumstances, all of which play vital roles in understanding the past and present. They transfer the intricate details of the humans in history.
Americans, more than any other people, want to make flattened cardboard figures out of both our heroes and villains. We often eschew the complexities of human nature. Good histories provide historic figures with depth, portraying them three-dimensionally. This gives us a truer version of our history and valuable perspectives on our own lives.
The vast majority of “The Greatest Generation” were not out to defeat fascism or even uphold President Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms. Half had never even heard of them. They just wanted to win the war and go home – alive and whole – to be left alone.
They professed religion and often invoked God’s name and prayer, but they were also profane and hardened – few troops were above cutting the “Gott mit uns” (God with us) belt buckles from rotting German corpses as mementoes. Most exhibited the widespread racial and religious prejudices of the time. The generals were as bad as or worse than the average soldiers; they did not worry that this would be frowned on – it did not happen. Many of the famous were vain, ambitious and dismissive of subordinates, blaming others for their own failures.
Overall, they had every human frailty and defect, but many also had strength, honor and compassion. When the war was over, they had to find a way to give meaning to the carnage so they said they fought to save the world for democracy. You could not find a better explanation even if most came to that conclusion after the fact.
However, a few at all levels understood what was at stake even as it happened. One of those became famous in death as the subject of Ernie Pyle’s most famous column, “The Death of Captain Waskow.” Pyle described how the survivors of B Company – whittled down to the size of a platoon – loved their commander, Captain Henry T. Waskow of Belton, Texas and how they reacted when his body, lashed to the back of a mule, was finally brought down from a cold Italian mountaintop like so many others.
Atkinson’s history goes on to tell of Waskow’s “last will and testament” mailed to his sister for safekeeping. As his own epitaph Waskow wrote, “I will have done my share to make this world a better place in which to live. Maybe when the lights go on again all over the world, free people can be happy and gay again…”
Freedom – so hard won and the cost so easily forgotten. History helps us remember.
