In September 1942, Army Chief Librarian Ray Trautman was connected the last limb of a satellite circuit of US installations erstwhile helium arrived successful Australia. Here, his ngo was twofold: instrumentality the somesthesia of the speechmaking needs successful this country of the war, and conscionable with General Douglas MacArthur, the ultimate commandant of the Southwest Pacific Theater.
The Pacific had already seen respective battles—from Wake Island and Midway, to the Philippines and the ongoing run for Guadalcanal. There was small uncertainty that the Pacific theatre would spot galore more. The gradual beforehand toward the Japanese mainland would impact amphibious landings of “one damned land aft another,” arsenic 1 GI described it. Some islands had precisely 1 imaginable landing point, which the Japanese had spent years preparing to defend. For the invaders, it was similar moving into a firing squad, surrounded by blood-stained sand, burning landing craft, and cries for medics. As E.B. Sledge, a Marine, described it, “To witnesser specified a country was worse than idiosyncratic danger. It was implicit agony.” It is nary wonderment that from the opening of the war, the morale concern successful the Southwest Pacific Area was, arsenic 1 biographer of Douglas MacArthur enactment it, “bleak.”
Trautman felt that if books were needed anywhere, it was successful the Pacific theater. To springiness troops what they wanted and needed most, Trautman endeavored to recognize what these soldiers astir wanted to read. Officers tended to circulate lone among different officers, but Trautman was determined to walk arsenic overmuch clip arsenic helium could with the men helium was serving—the GIs retired successful the field. He wanted to spell wherever the enlisted men were baking successful the heat, getting soaked successful the rain, and eating their rations with a dense peppering of soil nary substance however hard they tried to support the grit out. These were the men who needed a morale boost.
To springiness troops what they wanted and needed most, Trautman endeavored to recognize what these soldiers astir wanted to read.
When connection dispersed that the Chief Librarian of the Army was paying a visit, soldiers rushed to petition their favourite periodicals and publication genres. “I was treated similar royalty,” Trautman remembered aft the war. He was humbled by their hunger for people of immoderate kind. Most said they would beryllium grateful for thing to read, but, if they had a choice, best-selling novels, home-town newspapers, pin-up magazines, Westerns, sports stories, comics, and adjacent Sears Roebuck catalogs (Trautman referred to these arsenic “wishing books”) topped their list. As 1 worker stated successful an nonfiction printed successful The Library Journal, “You would person to [experience] the lethargy and isolation of the Southwest Pacific to recognize the worth of a book.” Because determination were often agelong periods of waiting, it was useful to person speechmaking worldly that was tiny capable to tuck into a pocket. Trautman observed that softcovers were highly fashionable due to the fact that of their compact size. Unfortunately, this format was disfavored by mainstream publishers.
At the time, the paperback was successful its infancy. In 1939, the archetypal American paperback firms had been launched: Pocket Books and Ian Ballantine’s New York outpost for Penguin Books, a paperback steadfast initially founded successful 1935 successful England. Publishing powerhouses—like Random House, Simon & Schuster, Scribner’s, and Doubleday—avoided thing successful insubstantial covers, uncovering them lurid, cheap, and reputationally harmful. Plus, astatine a quarter, (as compared to $2 to $4 for hardcovers), the nett borderline was a slim one; to marque money, the people tally typically had to transcend 100,000 oregon 150,000 copies and income had to beryllium robust. Between aesthetic objections and interest for their bottommost line, accepted publishing houses refused to person their titles printed successful thing different than hardcovers. Pocket Books and Penguin Books truthful specialized successful classics that were successful the nationalist domain and successful reprinting commercialized and genre fiction, chiefly mysteries, subject fiction, and Westerns. Contemporary titles and best-sellers were not to beryllium recovered successful brushed covers. For GIs, nary of the publishers’ qualms bothered them. The size suited their peripatetic reality, the genres were among their favorites, and they treasured each lightweight paperback that made the agelong travel to their theater. If lone determination were much books and a greater assortment of titles.
Not lone did overseas troops presumption the format of books otherwise than those connected the homefront, but they looked astatine the enactment of speechmaking successful an wholly antithetic light. As Trautman observed, galore troops were stationed successful distant outposts wherever the lone attractions were those provided by the military. Primitive surviving conditions were the norm. Many troops felt stranded connected godforsaken islands—because they were. Under these circumstances, adjacent men who had ne'er cracked a book’s spine astatine location were consenting to “read for deficiency of thing other to do,” arsenic 1 GI told Trautman. One brushwood made a heavy content connected him. Some of the books that the men had carried onto transports were inactive circulating, and helium approached a young worker to spot what helium was reading. The publication was Plato’s Republic “done successful basal English.” When the worker learned Trautman was a librarian, helium exclaimed, “Say this feline Plato is good! What other did helium constitute lately?” Whether it was Plato oregon Tarzan, the men work and swapped books tirelessly, ever handling them arsenic delicately arsenic past artifacts, for determination was nary knowing if much would arrive.
Trautman wanted to inundate the Pacific with the speechmaking materials troops wanted, but determination were obstacles. One of the biggest was the deficiency of a strategy for the retention of immoderate supplies successful the Southwest Pacific. This resulted successful the demolition of brand-new weaponry and gear, and a crushing rhythm of instrumentality shortages. During Trautman’s sojourn successful the autumn of 1942, erstwhile matériel was unloaded disconnected the seashore of Australia, it was stacked connected the beaches, afloat exposed to the elements. Humidity and saltwater corroded the bottommost tiers of containers arsenic they sank into the bedewed soil and rotted. A precocious percent of each shipload of supplies faced casualties without adjacent being unpacked. The urgent cries for much matériel carried on: much ships of instrumentality would arrive, a decent information of the replenishments would succumb to nature, and the wasteful series would statesman again.
Not lone did the retention snafu frustrate the prosecution of the war, it eroded morale. While the Special Services Division aimed to supply recreational instrumentality for troops to usage during off-duty hours—like diversion gear, movies, records and philharmonic instruments, and libraries—it became astir intolerable to vessel these items. Because warfare matériel was ever successful abbreviated supply, and cargo abstraction connected ships was finite, the Army created a precedence strategy to guarantee weapons and different “essential” instrumentality were loaded first. Entertainment was ranked debased connected the list. In the words of Major Ruel D. Harmon, an serviceman who oversaw the activities of the Special Services Division, 1 of the top challenges presented by the Southwest Pacific was “it was precise hard to get shipping abstraction for Special Services supplies.”
One idiosyncratic who could marque a immense interaction connected however books and different recreation instrumentality were treated was the theater’s commander, General Douglas MacArthur. Biographer William Manchester described the General arsenic “a large thundering paradox of a man, noble and ignoble, inspiring and outrageous, arrogant and shy, the champion of men and the worst of men.” This tangle of contradictions had served successful the Army for implicit 4 decades, spending respective years arsenic Army Chief of Staff. MacArthur was utilized to commanding and having things his way, and helium planned to support a choky grip connected his ain theater. If Trautman was going to bash his occupation and get troops the books they desperately wanted, helium needed to triumph the General’s support for prioritizing shipments of books.
Anytime Trautman faced an obstacle successful getting books to troops, helium ever recovered a mode astir it. He refused to fto those who wanted books to spell without them.
MacArthur was rumored to beryllium an avid publication reader. His father, Arthur MacArthur, Jr., kept a room of 4 1000 books that the General yet inherited. Many nights, MacArthur turned to these books, often choosing challenging texts to sharpen his mind; light-hearted fabrication was conspicuously absent. Trautman hoped that if MacArthur was a bookworm, possibly helium would beryllium amenable to his pitch. Yet, determination was different broadside to MacArthur. Graduating from West Point arsenic archetypal skipper and archetypal successful class, helium was hard-wired to run nether rigorous self-discipline, sacrifice, and sheer determination. When helium aboriginal returned to West Point to service arsenic its superintendent, MacArthur had mixed feelings astir the school’s recreational offerings.
On the 1 hand, helium discontinued the pupil paper due to the fact that it was excessively autarkic and captious of him, and connected the different helium enthusiastically supported athletics. MacArthur, arsenic biographer Geoffrey Perret wrote, “became convinced that the men who had taken portion successful organized sports made the champion soldiers,” due to the fact that those who “contended physically against different quality beings nether rules of a crippled were the readiest to judge and enforce discipline.” Bodily strength, operating arsenic a squad alternatively than arsenic individuals, and instinctively pursuing instructions from a manager oregon the calls of an umpire—these characteristics reinforced qualities MacArthur wanted successful his men. Independent speechmaking and penning did not.
When Trautman met with MacArthur, it rapidly became wide to him that the General had nary tendency for his soldiers to beryllium supplied with books and magazines. To MacArthur, solitary speechmaking was antagonistic to the Army’s aims. In fact, helium was resistant to practically each amusement and recreation offered by the Special Services Division due to the fact that helium wanted his men focused connected soldiering. Conveniently, MacArthur pointed a digit astatine the proviso shortages and insisted that helium needed each inch of cargo abstraction for instrumentality that could arm, clothe, oregon provender his men. On this point, MacArthur would not budge.
It was Trautman’s occupation to get books into the hands of soldiers, and his archetypal refusal to springiness crushed astir outgo him his subject career. When Trautman attempted to explicate the worth of speechmaking materials, however MacArthur’s men hungered for them, and that books provided intelligence “armor,” MacArthur fumed. Even though Trautman was a humble, soft-spoken, and unassuming young man, his gentle effort to alteration the General’s caput was interpreted arsenic an enactment of dereliction. To subsist successful MacArthur’s bully graces, 1 had to beryllium “blindly subservient, adjacent obsequious,” arsenic biographer William Manchester said.
This was confirmed by Clare Boothe Luce, an acquaintance of MacArthur’s, who stated that “MacArthur’s temperament was flawed by an egotism that demanded obedience not lone to his orders, but to his ideas and his idiosyncratic arsenic well. He plainly relished idolatry.” Questioning MacArthur connected the contented of depriving his troops of speechmaking worldly was the other of leader worship. In nary uncertain terms, MacArthur informed Trautman that a low-ranking librarian would not interfere with his operations successful the Southwest Pacific. The General was truthful incensed that helium adjacent threatened to complaint Trautman with insubordination. Trautman backed down.
He near Australia feeling drained and carrying the value of a mislaid opportunity. However, disappointment was soon replaced with determination. MacArthur could propulsion fertile arsenic a four-star wide and Supreme Commander of the Southwest Pacific, but Trautman was Chief Librarian of the full US Army and was charged with the task of fortifying troops arsenic they faced their darkest moments. The Southwest Pacific had the worst morale successful the US Army and Trautman was convinced that books would amended the payment of the troops stationed there. Although it would person been easier to person MacArthur’s approval, Trautman hatched a strategy truthful that tens of millions of books and magazines recovered their mode to the Southwest Pacific—and MacArthur could not bash a happening to halt him. As helium would bash repeatedly passim the war, anytime Trautman faced an obstacle successful getting books to troops, helium ever recovered a mode astir it. He refused to fto those who wanted books to spell without them.
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From A Librarian’s War: The Man Who Fought World War II with Books and Brought the Joy of Reading to Millions by Molly Guptill Manning. Copyright © 2026. Available from Oxford University Press.
English (US) ·