World War II Memoirs: The Pacific Theater

March 16, 2022 — A new Library of America volume presents three powerful firsthand accounts of WWII by veterans of the Pacific War who lived to tell their stories: E. B. Sledge, Samuel Hynes, and Alvin Kernan. Volume editor Elizabeth D. Samet, professor of English at West Point, joins historian Richard B. Frank to discuss what makes these memoirs classics of the modern literature of war. (The views Elizabeth D. Samet expresses in this program do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.) We thank our promotional partners: The Association of Literary Scholars, Critics, and Writers (ALSCW); Henry Sledge and the What’s the Scuttlebutt podcast; the United States Air Force Academy; Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum; the National Council for History Education (NCHE).