So here I was last week, in south Georgia on some family business, and I stopped in a used book store on St. Simon's Island to do some browsing.

In response to my inquiry, the owner told me she didn't have a specific section on aviation or military books, but there were some American history books on that set of shelves right over there...

And what do I find sitting there? A 1945 copy of Bill Mauldin's book "Up Front", in excellent original condition, priced at nine dollars!

Mauldin, the Pulitzer Prize-winning creator of the famous Willie and Joe cartoons that ran in Stars and Stripes during the war, wrote "Up Front" when he was a 22 year old Sergeant, and he explained the origin of his characters and the cartoons in which they figured.

It's a terrific book, one of the best first-person accounts I've ever read of a soldier's life in World War II. Mauldin is an excellent writer, able to hold your interest page after page, and this book is valuable because it was contemporary, written while the war was ongoing, and written by someone who had been in the thick of the fighting throughout Italy and -- at the time he wrote it -- France. I can't recommend "Up Front" highly enough...

If you want your own copy, you needn't scour used book stores: "Up Front" is in print, available from a number of sources. Get it, read it, enjoy it...for it's truly a treasure.

Nice find! About the only way that would have been a better haul was if you found his signature inside the front cover.

I have an original copy that I picked up used back in the 70's. I've downsized my book collection more than once over the years and even during the "big purge" back in the 1980's when I offed over 1,000 of my WWII books, all non-fiction, I kept "Up Front"...........

Yeah that's a great book, grab a copy of his book, The Brass Ring, an autobiography, it's a good read too.

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Stay safe people!

My late mom and dad were both in World War II. Mom was an Army nurse in the Pacific. Dad was in the Army Air Corps in Italy. They had the Bill Mauldin book in their collection. It's on my bookshelf now. It is a fine book.

I will do that!

Reading "Up Front", I found that Mauldin was quite a wordsmith as well as a cartoonist. He knows how to write, and to hold his reader's attention. This book is a pleasure to read, and I'll bet his autobiography is too.

Thanks for mentioning this! :-)

Aside from "The Brass Ring" autobiography, Mauldin also wrote an autobiography of his early years growing up in New Mexico, during the Depression. It's called, "A Sort of a Saga."
The family lived in little more than a shack, but his parents worked hard to provide as best they could.
It's very good reading. I wish I could quote from it, but it's currently 1,600 miles away in my cabin in central British Columbia, Canada!
Wait right there! I'll be up there next summer!