KEEP YOUR HEAD DOWN

by WalterBernstein '4O. The Viking Press, N. Y., 1945;213 pages; $2.00.

All but three of these chapters have appeared in The New Yorker. "Night Watch" was published in The Yale Review, and "Juke Joint" and "I Love Mountain Warfare" have not been published before. The first story is dated April 1941, and the last chapter describes action in the spring of 1944.

The author begins with his induction, tells of his training at Fort Benning, Georgia, and after an excellent picture of a juke joint and a night spent in the guardhouse, he describes the fighting in Sicily, mountain warfare with an infantry battalion operating in the Italian mountains, and lastly he depicts the war in Yugoslavia.

AH of his stories are written with an economy of words, with an excellent ear for Army conversation, and with a keen understanding of the psychology of the fighting man. Bernstein is a sergeant.

It is difficult to pick out any one chapter to write about as all are good indeed. "The Taking of Ficarra" etches an action in Sicily. "Walk Through Yugoslavia" gives a fine picture of the terrain, of the partisans, and of the nature of the war in that overrun country.

I have read a great many war books and this stacks up, it seems to me, with the best. The author omits the heroics, and writes with such a subtle kind of understatement that the result is the war as really fought by the G.l.'s are partisans in the Italian and Yugoslav theaters. I recommend this without reserva tion.