Numerous bookstore e-mail newsletters hit my inbox this week touting Father's Day promotions and events. Since my father died nearly four decades ago at the age of 51, this is, at best, a bittersweet holiday for me, though he wasn't much of a reader and I wouldn't have browsed many bookstore displays for gifts had he lived a longer life.
But he did have a book; a book that has been passed among my four brothers and me for decades; a book that in many ways makes a statement about the "value of books" in general during an era when we seem to be trying to redefine that concept on a daily basis.
My father's book was Battle Diary: The Story of the 243rd Field Artillery Battalion in Combat by Frank Smith, first published in 1946 in what was probably a small print run. It reads like an edited compilation of after action reports as the battalion made its way from basic training to Germany by way of England and France.
Although Battle Diary has been in my possession for long stretches, I did not read it until about 10 years ago, on the 30th anniversary of my father's death. I remember approaching the book cautiously, and choosing to read it not as Smith had intended--a clear-sighted account of day-to-day life as an army grunt in wartime--but more as a fogged window with an obscure view of the past, a view that might yield shadowy hints of my father's life at this precise moment in history.
Like many soldiers of his generation, he didn't talk about his war. I knew he'd served as a Cannoneer, Heavy Artillery, and not much else. But I also knew whatever had happened to Smith during that 17-month tour of duty, wherever he'd gone from boot camp to VE Day, my father was probably somewhere nearby.
When I finally decided to read the book, I initially examined it with bookseller's eyes. The cover was frayed and weathered and the pages--with a faded typewriter font--quite brittle. I flipped to the last section, where all of the members of the 243rd were listed, and found my father's name.
I opened to the first page and began taking notes as I read, fully aware that using Battlefield Diary to find my father might be as frustrating as those Magic Eye books that were so popular years ago, the ones with pictures you stared at until you were cross-eyed--patiently, then impatiently, waiting for a promised 3D image to emerge from the camouflage.
22 June 1944: No bands played when they set sail for Europe; just one last peek at the Statue of Liberty and then nothing but the Atlantic Ocean for almost a week. Smith called this "the beginning of an adventure whose duration and result cannot be predicted," but I wondered whether it had seemed like an adventure to my father.
7 August 1944: Disembarked on Utah Beach at 2330 hours, and moved to an assembly area west of La Foyer, then to a bivouac area near Briquebec. "Everybody seems anxious to see their first day of battle," wrote Smith. A word man, I thought this an interesting choice and wondered what my father's definition of "anxious" would have been. Eager? Uneasy? Instinctively, I want to trust the words I read, but know they have their own camouflage.
14 March 1945: Smith wrote about a Private on guard duty at the number one gun position when a half-dozen rounds of 170mm hit at about 2400 hours. As the soldier dropped into a spade pit, a round landed fewer than 20 yards away and tore holes in the side of a truck. In the book's margin, my mother had scribbled
"your father," with an arrow pointing to the entry. That's it. Just that brief description of my anonymous old man under fire.
On VE Day, Smith wrote the 243rd had been "miraculously lucky" as far as casualties were concerned, and that "every man who performed his duty to the best of his ability should feel a sense of satisfaction."
This means you, Dad, I was thinking when I first read that line, and wondered: How are you celebrating? How does it feel, this winning? You could get used to it, couldn't you? What will you do next? The possibilities are, if not endless, at least conceivable, on this singular day. Enjoy yourself, Dad. Enjoy it while you can.
On Sunday, I'll be thinking about the value of my father's book.--Robert Gray (column archives available at Fresh Eyes Now)