| They Called It "Purple Heart Valley"
(1944)
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| Front Cover |
Book Details |
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| Genre |
Non-Fiction |
| Subject |
Bourke-White, Margaret, 1904-1971; Italy - History - 1922-1945 - Pictorial works; World War, 1939-1945 - Italy - Pictorial works; World War, 1939-1945 - Personal narratives, American |
| Publication Date |
1944 |
| Format |
Hardcover (9.8
mm)
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| Publisher |
Simon & Schuster |
|
|
| Personal Details |
| Acquire Date |
6/10/2010 |
| Condition |
Very Good/-- |
| Rating |
0 |
| Links |
Library of Congress
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| Product Details |
| LoC Classification |
D763.I8 .B6 |
| Dewey |
940.54/21 |
| Edition |
[1st ed.] |
| No. of Pages |
182 |
| First Edition |
Yes |
| Rare |
No |
|
| Notes/Review |
I've read many books written by war correspondents. I generally find them interesting, if a bit formulaic - journalist travels to city behind the lines, goes to his hotel, drinks with other war correspondents before going to the front. At the front, he meets lots of soldiers/sailors/marines and relates their stories in a couple sentences, paragraphs, or pages.
This one is like that, but only vaguely. First, said war correspondent isn't a he but a she. Further, her main tool isn't a typewriter but a camera (or several of them). As a woman, she generally didn't see the front lines.
In this book, we get the story of how she got the pictures (and stories) of support personnel in the Italian campaign - quartermaster, medical, and artillery. She tells us of the difficulties in carting 850lbs of gear around and the difficulties of being the only woman in the area. Oh, and we get the pictures. And she does get to the front, briefly.
The action in the book takes place in the weeks before the attack on Monte Cassino, her story culminating with the preparatory artillery barrage.
I was struck by some of the racial/social/political remarks made by soldiers she talked to and her reactions to them. In addition to being ahead of her time as a woman doing the jobs she did, she seems to have been ahead of her time in thinking about race.
It was also interesting to read a bit about how she went about her job - setting up the shots and writing as much 'story' as the other war correspondents so that the photos could be put in their proper context and captioned correctly. |
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