List of authors in war  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

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Many of the authors that served in various real-life wars (and survived) wrote stories that are at least somewhat based on their own experiences. Some of them are outright memoirs or fictionalized accounts of their exploits.

Greco-Persian Wars

• Xenophon, (Anabasis)

Gallic War

• Julius Caesar, (De Bello Gallico)

Napoleonic Wars

• Jakob Walter

American Civil War

• Ambrose Bierce

Mexican Revolution

• Mariano Azuela, (Los de abajo)

World War I

• Henri Barbusse, served in France (Under Fire)
• E. E. Cummings, volunteer ambulance driver (The Enormous Room)
• Robert Graves, infantry officer in the Royal Welch Fusiliers (Goodbye to All That)
• Jaroslav Hasek, served in Austrian and Czech armies (who were on opposing sides), (The Good Soldier Svejk)
• Ernest Hemingway, drove ambulances in Italy (A Farewell to Arms)
• Ernst Jünger
• T. E. Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia (Seven Pillars of Wisdom)
• C. S. Lewis, British Army, Third Battalion Somerset Light Infantry, served in trench warfare at Somme Valley (The Chronicles of Narnia)
• Emilio Lussu, (Sardinian Brigade)
• H. E. L. Mellersh, infantry officer in the East Lancashire Regiment (Schoolboy Into War)
• Erich Maria Remarque, infantry soldier, wounded in Passchendaele (All Quiet on the Western Front)
• Siegfried Sassoon, infantry officer in the Royal Welch Fusiliers (Memoirs of an Infantry Officer)
• 2nd Lt. J. R. R. Tolkien, Lancashire Fusiliers, served in trench warfare at Somme Valley, Battle at Thiepval Ridge and assault on Schwaben Redoubt (The Lord of the Rings)
• Lajos Zilahy, (Century in Scarlet)

Spanish Civil War

• Arthur Koestler, interned by the Nationalists
• Laurie Lee, served on the Republican side (A Moment of War)
• George Orwell, served and wounded on the Republican side (Homage to Catalonia)

World War II

• Brian Aldiss, Royal Corps of Signals, saw action in Burma (Non-Stop, [No Time Like Tomorrow])
• Kingsley Amis, Royal Corps of Signals (Lucky Jim)
• Isaac Asimov, Philadelphia Navy Yard Naval Air Experimentation Station, United States Army (Foundation)
• J. G. Ballard, interned as a boy in Shanghai (Empire of the Sun)
• Edward L. Beach, Jr.
• Earle Birney, Canadian Army (Turvey)
• Pierre Boulle, in British Special Forces (Bridge on the River Kwai)
• Flt. Lt. Arthur C. Clarke, Royal Air Force (2001: A Space Odyssey)
• Col. Hal Clement, pilot B-24 Liberator, 68th Bomb Squadron, 44th Bomb Group, 8th Air Force, European Theatre (Mission of Gravity)
• L. Sprague de Camp, Philadelphia Navy Yard Naval Air Experimentation Station (Lest Darkness Fall)
• Anthony Faramus, survived Fort de Romainville, Buchenwald and Mauthausen concentration camps (Journey Into Darkness. 1990)
• Frank Kelly Freas, United States Army Air Forces, South Pacific
• Samuel Fuller – (The Big Red One)
• H. L. Gold United States Army (Beyond Fantasy Fiction)
• James Gunn (author), U.S. Navy (This Fortress World)
• Sven Hassel, Danish-born penal regiment soldier
• Lt. Robert A. Heinlein, Graduate of the United States Naval Academy. Served in U.S. Navy aboard USS Lexington (CV-2), USS Roper (DD-147), Philadelphia Navy Yard (Stranger in a Strange Land)
• Joseph Heller, served in 12th Air Force (Catch-22)
• Frank Herbert, U.S. Navy Seabees (Dune)
• L. Ron Hubbard, U.S. Navy (The Way to Happiness)
• James Jones (author), 25th Infantry Division, United States Army, Pearl Harbor, Guadalcanal (From Here to Eternity, [The Thin Red Line])
• Cyril M. Kornbluth, United States Army. Bronze Star recipient for service as heavy machine gunner at the Battle of the Bulge (The Space Merchants)
• 1st Sgt. R. A. Lafferty, United States Army Pacific Theatre (Fourth Mansions)
• Alistair MacLean, in the Royal Navy (HMS Ulysses)
• Norman Mailer, served in South Pacific (The Naked and the Dead)
• Harry Martinson, Swedish volunteer in Winter War (Verklighet Till Döds)
• John Masters Gurkha officer, served in North Africa and Burma with the Chindits (Bhowani Junction, The Road Past Mandalay)
• Nicholas Monsarrat
• Sgt. Frederik Pohl, United States Army Air Forces, 456th Bombardment Group, European Theatre (Gateway)
• Col. Konstantin Simonov, Soviet Army (The Immortal Garrison)
• Leon Uris, United States Marine Corps, Pacific Theatre, Guadalcanal, Tarawa (Battle Cry)
• A. E. van Vogt, Canadian Department of National Defence (Slan)
• Pvt. Gore Vidal, United States Army (Williwaw)
• Pvt. Kurt Vonnegut, United States Army infantry soldier, 423rd Infantry Regiment, 106th Infantry Division, captured during the Battle of the Bulge, survived bombing of Dresden as a POW (Slaughterhouse Five)
• Lt. Evelyn Waugh, in Royal Marines, later Royal Horse Guards served in Crete and Yugoslavia (Men at Arms, The End of the Battle)
• Jack Williamson, U.S. Army Air Corps (Darker Than You Think)
• Cpl. John Wyndham, Royal Corps of Signals, landed at Normandy (The Day of the Triffids)
• Capt. Vasily Zaytsev, Soviet Navy, Soviet Army, 1047th Rifle Regiment, 284th Rifle Division, 62nd Army; subject of (Enemy at the Gates)
• Samuel Menashe, United States Army
• Philip Appleman
• Harvey Shapiro
• J.D. Salinger

Korean War

• "Richard Hooker"

First Indochina War

• Pierre Schoendoerffer

Vietnam War

• David Hackworth, in US Army (Vietnam Primer, About Face, Steel My Soldiers' Hearts)
• Joe Haldeman
• Ron Kovic
• Karl Marlantes, US Marine Corps (What it is Like to Go to War, Matterhorn)
• Tim O'Brien
• James Robinson Risner
• Senator Jim Webb
• David Drake
• Tobias Wolff

Falklands War

• Robert Lawrence, (When The Fighting Is Over)

Gulf War

• "Andy McNab"
• "Chris Ryan"
• Anthony Swofford, in US Marines (Jarhead (book))

Iraq War

• Colby Buzzell

Afghanistan War

• Weston Ochse

See also

• List of military writers - people who write about war but did not necessarily serve in war