War Journal of an Innocent Soldier

In this memoir, impressively low-key and matter-of-fact, the author recalls his experiences as a GI in Europe during the latter part of WW II. Bassett, now a groundskeeper in California wine country, composed this diary in 1945 and reworked it later. He tells of fighting in the north of Italy between April 14 and May 4, with an additional entry for June, vividly recounting life in the front lines, endured under the constant shadow of death. The author emerges as a hero precisely because he seemed not to be one: rather, he was a terrified innocent who resolved to do his job, however unsuited he was to it. (Aug.)