Join War on the Rocks and gain access to content trusted by policymakers, military leaders, and strategic thinkers worldwide.
On June 5, 1944, as soldiers lined British shores, preparing for their perilous journey to the beaches of Normandy, Special Services units handed out comfort items, from packs of cigarettes to candy. But one item was more sought after than any other: books. Crouched on the crowded decks awaiting Eisenhower’s call to launch, the men clasped their standard-issue rifles and clutched their standard-issue paperbacks. They were armed with stories: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, The Robe, all printed to uniform-pocket size and stamped “Armed Services Edition.”
War changed this through the efforts of the newly founded Council on Books in Wartime, which redesigned and popularized the mass-produced paperback, shipping 1,324 titles and 122,951,031 copies to soldiers and sailors serving across the globe.
Armed Services Editions were revolutionary for the unique wartime need they perfectly met, and for the remarkable organizational success of the entities that together produced them. The story of these books themselves is one worth reading and reflecting on, particularly as we contemplate the needs and well-being of today’s servicemembers.
As Adolf Hitler orchestrated the burning of books across Germany, scorching their democratic past, President Franklin D. Roosevelt asserted “books cannot be killed by fire,” and his administration organized book drives alongside those for scrap metal and rubber to support the war effort. Some of these books made it to military base libraries, but you can’t arm G.I.s with oversized hardcovers. Seeing a niche need just months after the Pearl Harbor attack, the Council on Books in Wartime formed as a group to champion the concept of books as “weapons in the war of ideas.” The Council brought together key players from across the print industry: publishing house magnates from W.W. Norton and Random House, editors from the New York Times and Publishers Weekly, and leaders from the American Booksellers Association and the Book Publishers Bureau. Despite their disparate backgrounds, the nascent Council soon adopted a mission: figure out how to mass-produce and mass-supply books at production cost for the Army and Navy.
The organization had an idea, but no concept of what these books should look like, so they recruited Raymond Trautman, a young officer leading the Army’s Library Section. Trautman then recruited Stanley Thompson, a graphic artist with experience designing lightweight novels. Trautman and Thompson tackled the design and manufacturing challenges of the new paperback, overhauling rotary presses used for pulp magazines to produce their new pocket models and printing two books at a time side by side with normal presses, then cutting them in half before binding. Meanwhile, the Council debated what books should actually be printed and how they could cheaply allocate royalties. The result: the Armed Services Edition. Armed Services Editions were printed in two sizes — one as small as a postcard to fit in a uniform breast pocket, and one a bit larger to fit in the hip pocket, both oriented horizontally like flip books to conserve space. Authors whose titles were printed would receive 1 cent per copy split between them and their publisher. The first titles chosen were ones to keep young men engaged and inspired: literary classics and histories, Westerns, popular novels of the day, and a little bit of romantic smut.
The first Armed Services Edition shipment in 1943 totaled 1.5 million copies of these tiny printing novelties and was a whopping success, all to the credit of the Council on Books in Wartime and the team of passionate, relevant experts assembled to achieve their mission. Civilians from uppity and artistic fields united to support Army and Navy military communities completely foreign to them. The Council altruistically engaged in a paperback manufacturing initiative counter to their print culture yet managed a budget that still paid authors and publishers and garnered modest commercial success for their efforts. This pioneering partnership between a civilian committee and the U.S. military succeeded because all parties recognized a unique need and deployed rapidly, smartly, and selflessly to meet it.
As news of Armed Services Editions’ popularity among soldiers and sailors made its way back home, the Council began to recognize just how much these books were improving the daily lives of these men at war. But not even the Council could have predicted how the discovery of literature would impact returning veterans for decades to come.
Before the war, fourth grade was the widely accepted adequate education level for U.S. adults. Many young enlistees had never tried to read a work of literature cover to cover. During long transits across the Pacific and quiet lulls in combat zones, these servicemembers had little in the way of distraction, but they did have a book in their pocket. Eventually they opened them. Soon they would devour them, trade them like currency, and report them to be “as popular as pinup girls” — just about the highest form of praise possible from a young soldier.
Years after the war ended, one Armed Services Edition author, Helene MacInnes, received a letter from a G.I. enclosed with a copy of his Ph.D. diploma. He’d never read a book until he was given an Armed Services Edition copy of her suspense novel While Still We Live. He enjoyed the piece so much he applied for college after his service and went on to pursue a doctorate in literature. Though not every soldier pursued higher education to the doctoral level, a staggering number came home and applied for college. Servicemembers’ newfound exposure to the written word, coupled with the passage of landmark government-funded education incentives, like the G.I. Bill, encouraged nearly 7.8 million veterans to utilize education or training benefits, and of those, 2.2 million specifically to attend college. Of the 15.6 million surviving servicemembers, 50 percent used the benefit, and over 14 percent could afford college because of it. It was these educated veterans who helped form the backbone of America’s thriving middle class in the 1950s and 1960s. Veterans who would instill a love of learning in their families — multiplying numbers of books on shelves and diplomas on walls in countless homes over generations.
Of the veterans who weren’t thirsting for a diploma following the end of the war, they had at the very least developed a taste for literature, and they were used to it in paperback form. In 1939, fewer than 200,000 paperbacks were printed in the United States. By 1950, paperback publishers were popping up left and right, printing nearly 650 separate titles that year and selling over 200 million copies — more books sold than if every adult in the country bought one at the time. A cultural revolution had occurred, changing American publishing for good. Paperback book sales represented a significant percentage of the market. General book sales were at all-time highs resulting from individual purchases by a thriving, eager middle-class consumer, as well as increasing purchase contracts with federal entities, a continuation of the civil-government partnership forged by the Council.
The coalescence of the Council on Books in Wartime serves as a shining example of civilian industry leaders who united to address a military challenge the government couldn’t solve. As today’s defense innovations move further toward the overengineered and deeply technical, perhaps it is time again to step back and consider what needs of today’s servicemembers are not fully met. What simple solutions might serve them that can be achieved with help from willing civilian partners?
When we reflect on war and all its cruelties, it is easy to focus on the most gruesome narratives and forget the few uplifting ones. Lessons learned from conflict need not always be tactical or technical. Remembering the World War II love story between the G.I. and the paperback affirms this. It also reminds us that soldiers, sailors, and marines were then, and are still, warriors, but humans too. They deserve human pleasures and escapes, for who knows how far such gifts might take them.
Alana Davis is an active-duty U.S. naval submarine officer who has served in the Western Pacific and the Middle East aboard submarines and on naval staffs. She holds a BA from Harvard University and an MBA from the University of Florida. Her published writing ranges from research-based commentary to literary fiction. The views and opinions presented here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Navy, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. government.
Image: Wikimedia Commons via Library of Congress
