Explain the combat contract and apply it to World War I or World War II, and Korea or Vietnam NO OUTSIDE SOURCES!! so do not c

1072 The Journal of American History Decetnber 2003

work bas tended to buttress tbeories of innate racial inequality but in tbe main. Tucker writes, "obscure academics lacking any major scientific acbievements and notable primarily for their contributions to a string of racist and neo-Nazi causes" (p. 210).

Daniel J. Kevles Yale University New Haven, Connecticut

"Die Scbwarzen waren unsere Freunde": Deut- scbe Kriegsgefangene in der amerikaniscben Ge- sellscbafi, 1942-1946 ("The blacks were our friends": German prisoners of war in Ameri- can society, 1942-1946). By Mattbias Reiß. (Paderborn, Ger.: Schöningh, 2002. 371 pp. € 4 0 . 9 0 , ISBN 3-506-74479-8.) In German.

This book focuses on tbe multiple ironies gen- erated by tbe presence during World War II of increasing numbers of German prisoners of war (POWs) in tbe racial structure of a United States segregated by law and custom. As con- quered enemies, representing a regime tbat came close to incorporating absolute evil, tbe Germans stood in principle beneatb even the lowest rungs of the American order. Germans were also, particularly in the South, widely used for the kinds of agricultural labor associ- ated with blacks and organized on "black" lines, in large work gangs. O n tbe otber hand, as clearly identifiable members of tbe domi- nant etbnic community, tbey were regularly treated as "wbites" in situations involving seg- regated facilities such as restaurants, toilets, and railroad cars. According to Matthias Reiss, German prisoners eventually were so readily accepted by the American civil population that the POW camps increasingly became a means less of protecting Americans from tbeir enemies than of keeping the two groups apart, preventing the Germans from utilizing fully the privileges that accrued to them because of tbeir skin color.

Reiss concedes tbat more tban racial issues were involved in tbis process. He makes tbe case that, in contrast to 1917, the U.S. war against Germany did not possess a strong, popular ideological dimension. That made it easier to integrate German POWs into the American racial structure—particularly by

comparison witb tbeir Japanese counterparts, defined as "otbers" in botb racial and ideolog- ical terms throughout the conflict. Black Americans by and large took tbe same ap- proacb to German prisoners as their white fel- low countrymen did, fraternizing with them at every opportunity. Germans for their part, despite the racist and totalitarian doctrines of National Sociahsm, responded with similar interest and curiosity—hence the book's title.

Reiss's hmited focus on race, however, leads him to overlook other factors no less impor- tant to the acculturation of German POWs. Above all, they had nowhere to go. Escaping from a work site often involved little more than walking away, but the sheer size of the United States rendered that activity pointless. The big cities were far away, and even tbere disappearing proved difficult. A few nigbts outdoors were usually enougb to bring fugi- tives into tbe open, seeking a ride back to cus- tody.

Tbe pbysical circumstances of captivity in turn created among tbe POWs a widespread mentality of compliance, of making tbe best of tbings until tbey sbould be able to return to tbeir own society. Tbose prisoners wbo main- tained a bostile distance were usually re- stricted, by cboice or compulsion, in tbeir contacts witb American civilians. Tbe norma- tive behaviors of the rest appealed to most Americans who had any encounters with the POWS. They appeared as hard working, polite, deferential—qualities appreciated in all young men but associated especially closely with ap- propriate black behavior. German POWs' whiteness, in short, was not entirely a matter of pigment. It was to a significant degree a construction, combining tbe skin color of tbe dominant group and tbe submissive behavior ofthe subordinate one.

Dennis E. Sbowalter Colorado Gollege Golorado Springs, Golorado

Tbe G! War against Japan: American Soldiers in Asia and tbe Pacific during World War II. By Peter Scbrijvers. (New York: New York Uni- versity Press, 2002. xvi, 320 pp. $45.00, ISBN 0-8147-9816-0.)

Book Reviews 1073

American Soldiers: Ground Combat in the World Wars, Korea, and Vietnam. By Petet S. Kindsvattet. (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2003. xxiv, 432 pp. $34.95, ISBN 0- 7006-1229-7.)

Drawing extensively on wartime letters, un- publisbed personal memoirs, diaries, and questionnaires completed by vetetans, Peter Scbrijvers compiles a rieb and compelling cul- tural and social bistory of Ametican service- men and -women serving in Asia and tbe Pa- cific during World War II. His broad panorama includes personal testimonies and narratives ftom all the military brancbes de- scribing tbe diversity of wartime experiences ftom frontline rifiemen trying to live out a sin- gle day to supply clerks stuck for montbs ot years on end in tbe lonely backwaters of tbe Pacific, India, ot Cbina. Tbis is not a fashion- able "memory study," but a fresh account de- rived ftom contemporary first person desctip- tions and impressions of the phenomena of modern, total war in the mid-twentieth cen- tury. To place these testimonies in the larger context, the autbor supplements the personal and impressionistic versions of a militaty soci- ety at war in Asia and the Pacific with judi- cious teliance on secondary sources and offi- cial U.S. military histories.

For analytical purposes, Scbrijvers organizes bis book into tbree main sections. Part 1 exam- ines the conceprion of the American C.I.'s of the Asia-Pacific theaters of war as another fron- tier to be evaluated, tamed, and Ameticanized. As be vividly demonstrates in part 2, tbe fron- tier terrain, witb its multitudinous cultures and peoples, proved resistant to American con- trol, producing among C.I.'s a sense of frustra- tion "fiowing ftom tbe region's oppressive wilderness, tbreatening demographics, and im- penetrable mentality" (p. ix). Part 3 plumbs the escalating fury unleashed by a modern, in- dustrialized society against an unforgiving en- vironment and foe. Beyond the personal rage of flesh and blood unleashed in wartime loomed the impersonal industrial violence that developed geometrically duting the war.

Schtijvers's analysis is fitst rate throughout the volume and avoids monocausal ot simplis- tic explanations to account fot the rage and

barbatity tbat cbaracterized tbe war against Ja- pan. Beyond the physical and mental tribula- tions, the harsh environment, and the "acti- mony springing from cultural and tacial competition" (p. 220) lay the psychological mechanisms triggered by combat itself. War- fare corrodes tbe human spirit, and as Schrij- vers suggests "every new step on the path of batbarization could be justified as nothing more than retaliation in kind" (p. 221). Add to this the impetsonal dimension of industrial violence, and "amidst the numbing escalation of destruction ftom land, sea, and ait it took time for the extraordinary fury of the atomic bombs to stand out" (p. 260).

Scbtijvets provides a deep and rieb textute of tbe overall context and expetience of total watfate as exptessed by tbose Ameticans who participated in the defining process. The a War against Japan does what first-rate histoty is supposed to do; it evokes the spirit of the age and the impressions of the ordinary men and women who lived tbrougb it. If, as Scbrij- vers reminds us, modern industrial warfare is so complex an event that attempts to sanitize it are as inadequate as those to brutalize it, is it possible or even wottbwbile for a bistotian to write about tbe expetience of battle?

Peter S. Kindsvattet's ambitious study an- swets tbat question. It is at once nattowet than Schtijvers's, being focused on soldiers in com- bat, and more expansive by analyzing battle- field conduct in the fout major wars fought by the United States ftom 1917 to 1972. Kinds- vatter asks what motivates a soldiet, in James Jones's wotds, to "'go out into dangerous places and get himself^shot at'" (p. xii). To an- swer the rhetorical question, he telies exten- sively on "published fiction, memoirs, and his- toties by combat veterans" (p. ix), all of it familiar to military bistory specialists. Wbat sets American Soldiers apart is Kindsvatter's ex- cellent melding of secondary soutces and bat- tle litetatute into a cobetent and insigbtful ex- planation of men in battle. It is good to bave tbis distillation of bistory and litetatute witb its thought-provoking interpretations in a sin- gle volume.

American Soldiers is arranged thematically, with each chapter cattying its subject ftom World Wat I through the Vietnam Wat.

1074 The Journal of American History December 2003

Chapter 1, for example, examines why men enlisted or accepted being drafted, and it finds similar motivations and preconceptions about warfare in all four confiicts. Subsequent chap- ters deal with the individual soldiers' or marines' reaction to battle, their ability or in- ability to cope with the environment, and in- sightful analysis of the motivations that kept them in harm's way when all ordinary instincts suggested fiight.

By pulling together fragments of accounts drawn from over a half century of American warfare, Kindsvatter demonstrates the conti- nuity of the combatant's experience of war, the repetition of soldiers' behavior, and the con- stant need to relearn previously hard-gained experience, which suggests the difficulty com- bat veterans encounter when passing along their personal narratives. Like Schrijvers, he concludes that a variety of motivations con- spire to make soldiers go forward into battle. Racial hatred may be one, but it is not the sole reason to fight and kill. Others include basic survival, vengeance, adventure, enjoyment in dealing with stress, and the obvious but often overlooked satisfaction, sense of accomplish- ment, and pride of the soldier who took a deadly job seriously and did it well.

Both authors develop and analyze the com- plex, multiple, and often simultaneous moti- vations of the C.I. at war. Both break down the stereotypes of combat and warfare that have been perpetuated into national myth. Read together, the two accounts offer the reader a new appreciation of the social conse- quences of warfare from the eyes of partici- pants, not distant observers. For a complex so- cietal grouping such as the armed forces, their conclusions should not be surprising, but they are ones that constandy need restating. These books do that in superb fashion.

Edward J. Drea Fairfax, Virginia

The Hidden Campaign: FDR s Health and the 1944 Election. By Hugh E. Evans. (Armonk: Sharpe, 2002. xviii, 202 pp. $29.95, ISBN 0- 7656-0855-3.)

This addition to the literature on Franklin D. Roosevelt is a worthy and well-written study

by Hugh E. Evans, an eminently qualified and experienced physician. It focuses primarily upon Roosevelt's health during the last months of his life, and it provides a brief treat- ment of FDR'S medical history and some gen- eral observations on the life expectancy of the twentieth-century president.

When Roosevelt assumed the presidency in 1933 he was in excellent health except for the partial paralysis resulting from the polio attack in 1921. The first known evidence of decline in Roosevelt's health was a very high blood pressure reading in 1937 and results of an "ab- normal" EKG (electrocardiogram) in 1941. Thereafter until 1944 during the stressful days of World War II "the president's hypertension progressed without even minimal treatment as noted in available records" (pp. 37-38).

The person Evans found most responsible for ignoring these warning signs was the pres- ident's personal physician, Ross T. Mclntire. Finally in early 9AA, under pressure from worried staff and family members, Mclntire invited Howard G. Bruenn, an internist and cardiologist, to examine Roosevelt. Bruenn then became Roosevelt's primary physician untU the president died in April 1945. Bruenn was sworn to secrecy and reported only to Mclntire. Bruenn's diagnosis: hypertension, congestive heart failure, and bronchitis. He recommended hospital confinement, digitali- zation, a strict diet, and weight reduction. Mclntire responded, "'You can't do that. This is the President of the United States!'" (p. 46). Roosevelt was not hospitalized, and Evans es- timated that the probability of Roosevelt sur- viving a fourth term was low.

Nonetheless, Roosevelt ran in 1944 and was elected to a fourth term. The president's performance in his "Fala" speech and his cam- paign appearance in New York in the rain seemed to dispel any public concerns, and most press coverage on the president's health depended primarily upon Mclntire, who "'isn't a bit worried about him'" (p. 80). This despite a blood pressure reading in September 1944 at the second Quebec Conference that ranged from 180/100 to 240/130! Roosevelt died not long afi:er the Yalta Conference in April 1945 of a massive cerebral hemorrhage.

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