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In Afteryears…
The Faces of War
March 1998
by John Hersey ’36
Written in 1946 on the occasion of Hersey’s 10th reunion.
John Hersey, 1914–1993
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In October 1941, my wife, Frances Ann, gave birth to our first son, Martin. After the outbreak of the war, and while the campaign in the Philippines was still going on, I wrote, from sources in this country, Men on Bataan. In the summer of 1942, Time sent me out as a correspondent in the Pacific, where I spent several months aboard the first Hornet and a short time on Guadalcanal. There, besides observing the Marines, I participated in two air accidents on successive flights, and one of them, the capsizing on landing of a two-seater, open-cockpit, air-sea rescue plane, qualified me for membership in the now rapidly expanding association known as The Enemies of Modern Aviation. I returned to the United States in the autumn, resumed work for Time, wrote Into the Valley, and stood by while our second son, John, was born.
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“In Moscow’s Metropole Hotel in June of 1944, I learned by cable of the birth of our daughter.” |
Next I went to North Africa and Sicily, where I covered air and infantry phases of the invasion and again took unwilling part in two airplane accidents; again they were on successive flights; and again one of them, the entanglement of a C-47 with a barrage balloon cable and the plane’s consequent crash landing, gave me considerable prestige among The Enemies. In September 1943, I came home, left all my notes from the Mediterranean trip in a taxicab in excitement over seeing my family again, learned that a kind colonel named Austin had taken them from the taxi and then lost them in excitement over seeing his wife, and finally recovered them from the lost-and-found department of the Pennsylvania Hotel. I then went to the mountains of North Carolina where I wrote A Bell for Adano. In the winter of 1943 to 1944, Life sent me on a short trip to Mexico.
In June of 1944, I went to Russia, and there, I covered the war from Room 475 in the Metropole Hotel in Moscow. I learned by cable, also in that room, of the birth of our daughter, Ann Baird. I made trips to Leningrad, Estonia, and Poland, but I spent most of my time in Moscow covering Russian theatre, writing, music, and art.
Back in the States in 1945 for another breather, I wrote articles for Life and The New Yorker. In November, I went to China and corresponded from there with the same two magazines; spent six weeks in a small Chinese village near Peiping, rode through the Yangtze gorges on an old launch, accompanied Chinese troops on a trip from Shanghai to Manchuria on an LST, and visited Kalgan, which was then Communist-held. Afterwards I flew to Japan and did research for Hiroshima, which I wrote after my return to the United States. At present I am living in the country, writing and enjoying getting acquainted with my family.  |
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