Hanover Browsing

Practical War Books; Selected Reading Chosen by Roswell Magill, Dorothy Thompson, H. L. Mencken

WHAT WITH THE United States becoming an armed camp (I hope soon enough), and many of us liable to be called to defend our country, it might prove helpful to look over some titles of books used at West Point and Annapolis, and recommended by the War Department.

Certainly one of the most useful is TheR.O.T.C. Manual: Infantry which is a textbook for the Reserve Officers' Training Corps. This is in 4 volumes (bound in 2) and is published by The Military Service Publishing Company, 100 Telegraph Building, Harrisburgh, Pa. The 22nd edition was published in June, 1940, and so is up to date. Volumes 1 and 2 are "basic"; 3 and 4 "advanced."

These volumes cover among other things map reading, military sanitation, rifle and rifle marksmanship, leadership, infantry drill regulations, military organization, pistol, aerial photo reading, supply and mess management, heavy weapons, antitank guns, and so on. The books are lavishly illustrated with maps, diagrams, and photographs.

Another basic text is Tactics and Technique of Infantry, a volume of nearly 800 pages, which is also published by the company named above.

Modern warfare cannot be learned from text books, but these should be of great help none the less, and most of their content should be mastered if one desires to become a competent officer.

I add a list of books used as texts at West Point:

Tactics and Technique of Infantry,Great Captains, Dodge; Life of Napoleon, Jomini; American Campaigns, Steele; Military History of the World War, McEntee; Simple Aerodynamics and the Airplane, Carter (5th Edition); Fundamentals ofRadio, Terman (1938); Surveying, Davis, Foote, and Rayner; Elements of Ordinance, Hayes; The Gasoline Automobile, Elliott and Consoliver; Elements of Military Hygiene, Medical Field Service; A Politicaland Cultural History of Modern Europe, Hayes; A History of the Far East in Modern Times, Vinacke; The Great Powers inWorld Politics, Simonds and Enemy.

Annapolis uses as texts: History of Sea Power, Stevens and Westcott; Short History of the U. S. Navy, Clark, Stevens, Alden and Krafft; American Government, Ogg and Ray; Alnerican PracticalNavigator, Bowditch; Navigation and Nautical Astronomy, Dutton; Seamanship, Knight; Watch Officers Guide; History ofAmerican Foreign Policy, Latane; Modernand Contemporary European History, Shapiro.

I understand from Dean Lloyd K. Neidlinger, who supplied these lists, that these books may be purchased through ordinary channels. They will be available, too, this fall to Dartmouth undergraduates.

In August I wrote around to some alumni and certain recipients of honorary degrees for their book recommendations. Many of the answers deserve to be quoted completely, and will be. Where the writer made no comments only the list will be given. These recommendations will be included, along with my own, in subsequent installments. I hope they will prove helpful to readers of this column.

I have thanked those who kindly answered my letter, and do so here again, publicly.

Roswell F. Magill '16, who received an honorary degree last June, wrote an interesting letter which I quote as he wrote it:

"When I dined with the New Hampshire bankers and President Hopkins in June, he remarked that Mein Kampf was required reading for us all. I had just purchased it, and have been wading through it. My main impression has not been so much the accuracy of its prophecy, as the author's apparent complete lack of interest in any program for the improvement of the lot of the common man whom the Germans are to dominate. It is a simple program Hitler proposes; perhaps that is its power. The book certainly should be read by us all while we yet have time. (This letter was written on August 16th.)

"I always read the Wodehouse books as fast as they come out; I believe that there was a good one this spring, which I left in town. If not, there was a good one last year or the year before which will stand re-reading. (I recommend the Wodehouse anthology published by Garden City. H. F. W.) Hans Zinsser's autobiography is delightful reading; I don't know why he used a rather involved third person sometimes in telling it. How To Read a Book, by Mortimer Adler has a most persuasive style, and is a good selling talk for his program whether you believe in it or not. Laski's The American Presidency is worth the attention of anyone in this presidential year, and particularly strikes home to one who has experienced the peculiar fact that while the President may be leader of his party, he is not the leader of his party in Congress. I also enjoyed Mrs. Miniver (Jan Struther), but it ought to be read as it appeared in the London Times, a sketch a day. Since I am building a house, I read again The Manof Property and the rest of the ForsyteSaga; I think that I read it first under Wilson Follett at Dartmouth in English 13-14, or 17-18 or thereabouts. It wears awfully well. For more of an England that may be gone, let me recommend Trollope, particularly perhaps Orley Farm, since it isn't enough noticed."

Dorothy Thompson, who received an honorary Litt.D. in 1938, writes me she has recently read the following books:

The Federalist (available in the Everyman's Library), Mein Kampf, Leaves ofGrass, The Possessed, The Technique ofthe Coup d' Etat, Plato's Republic, TheGrapes of Wrath, Abe Lincoln in Illinois.

Mr. H. L. Mencken needs no introduction but it might be said that he disagrees with most editorial writers (certainly with Miss Thompson in the journalistic field), always speaks his mind honestly, and that he has been one of the most pungent adversaries of the New Deal and more particularly President Roosevelt. He is entirely free from cant, and I regard him not so much as anti-English or pro-German as has been said of him. but as distinctly proAmerican, evidence for which may be traced back for sixty years. His letter follows:

"The most interesting book that I have "read of late is Peaks and Lamas, by Marco Pallis, published by Knopf. Pallis is a Greek denizen of England, who went to the Himalayas to climb peaks and lingered to study Buddhism. Buddhism seems to me to be complete hooey; nevertheless, Pallis manages to make his investigation of it interesting. He writes extremely well, and has produced a thoroughly unusual and interesting book.

"I lately plowed through the four volumes of Sandburg's Lincoln. They are full of immensely interesting stuff, but it seems to me that Sandburg has made a mess of the writing—indeed, there are plenty of places in which it must strike any reader that he is puzzled by his own material and can't figure out its significance. Nevertheless, it must be said for him that he is honest. Despite his theory that Old Abe was a noble character, he doesn't hesitate to present the massive evidence to the contrary.

"I have been reading of late a number of old books, for example, The City of God by St. Augustine, and Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes. The City of God struck me, once more, as a farrago of nonsense. It is really amazing that any one should ever have taken it seriously as a work either of theology or philosophy. Leviathan, on the contrary, delighted me all over again. It is certainly one of the most interesting books ever written."

For an understanding of the basic impulses which move man politically, to Leviathan (Everyman's Library) I should add The Prince by Machiavelli, and, curious as it may seem, Swift's Gulliver'sTravels.

I have read a fair amount this summer, and shall mention some of the better things in good time.

I should like to congratulate the Class of 1930 on their excellent decennial report Where, Oh Where?, ably edited by Hen S. Odbert. There are individual biogi phies of the Class, and a digest of replies interesting questions sent out to each member

of the class. What the book proves would not care to say, but its contents, guarantee, will interest every Dartmout man who gets a chance to read it. More anon.