Newsmen in Khaki: Tales of a World War II Soldier Correspondent

Enlisting at age 22, Mitgang was assigned to the Air Corps (then a branch of the U.S. Army), leaving for North Africa on a troopship in 1942. Stationed with the 5th Bomb Wing on the edge of the Sahara, he edited a mimeographed newsletter, Bombfighter Bulletin, which led to an editorial post with the armed forces newspaper Stars and Stripes. This is Mitgang's memoir of his tenure as managing editor of the paper's Sicily edition, and he shares recollections of covering the war with sharp clarity. He tells of listening to a captain and his men discuss bringing down the German-occupied Leaning Tower of Pisa:""I listened in fascination. What a story! To be present not at the creation but at the destruction of the world-famous landmark that had stood for some 800 years."" He later moved on to man typewriters in Naples and Rome. Back in New York in 1945, a recommendation by cartoonist Bill Mauldin resulted in work on the screen treatment of Mauldin's Up Front. Reprints of Stars and Stripes pieces by Mitgang, novelist Klaus Mann (Mephisto), paperback illustrator Stanley Meltzoff and others punctuate the pages. Mitgang has a razor-sharp memory and writes in such a fluid, lucid manner that some may wish he'd continued on, documenting his postwar career at the New York Times.