Guard of Honor
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Guard of Honor is a Pulitzer Prize winning novel by James Gould Cozzens published in 1948. The novel is set in the summer of 1943 (referred to in the book as "the second summer of the war") referring to World War II. Most of the action occurs on or near a fictional Army Air Force base in central Florida. The action occurs over a period of approximately 48 hours. The long chapters are titled "Thursday", "Friday" and "Saturday".
Before entering the AAF in 1943, Cozzens had already published 10 novels; his duties included writing speeches and articles for Henry H. Arnold, who in turn commanded the entire AAF. Cozzens also maintained a watch over incidents which might cause embarassment to the AAF -- one such incident occurred in April of 1945: African-American officers protested the segregation of officer club facilities in what became known as the Freeman Field Mutiny.
Cozzens writes Guard of Honor about a fictional but similar incident, set in Florida, during 1943. Guard was one of Cozzens' "professional novels," in which he drew detailed portraits of individuals, centering on their professional lives and the details of their work.
Contents |
[edit] Story
The novel opens with seven characters, flying to Oncara in an AT-7. The major characters include:
- Major General Ira "Bus" Beal – Commander of the fictional AFORAD (Air Forces Operations and Requirements Analysis Division)
- Colonel Norm Ross – "Judge" a reserve officer, a judge in civilian life who is Beal’s Air Inspector and effectively his executive officer; much of the book is from Ross’s viewpoint.
- Captain Nathaniel Hicks – in civilian life an editor of a national magazine, who is working on a manual for fighter pilots
- Lieutenant Amanda Turck – in civilian life a librarian who had attempted medical school, she tracks classified documents.
[edit] Quotes
"The original AT-7’s, of which this was one, were delivered to the Army Air Forces in the second summer of the war. Meant for use in navigator training, their cabins were equipped with three navigator’s positions- a seat; a plotting table; a drift meter and an aperiodic compass; a radio headset and a hand microphone".
"Colonel Ross knew that Captain Collins had been sports editor for a large city newspaper, though he could not remember what city. Though he was now in his middle thirties, wearing glasses, and somewhat filled-out and softened, it was evident still that there had been a time when Captain Collins was an athlete himself – probably a football player at one of the big state universities where football was a business".
"'Oh, Judge!' General Beal said. 'That boy is a honey! You can believe me. Because we have a few more like him we’re going to win the war'".
"It seemed more probable to Colonel Ross that they were going to win the war, not because they had a few more Bennys, but because they had thousands and thousands of run-of-the-mill pilots; and hills of bombs; and dumps of supplies as large as small cities, which could not be neutralized as Benny had so nearly been, by one burst of one automatic rifle in one ditch".
"... it ought not to be forgotten, while they beat their brains over this teapot tempest in a Zone of Interior installation, ... ... ...; now at this very moment, if the weather had been at all possible, Eighth Air Force bombers were turning, a certain number of them damaged with engines out and dead and wounded on board, to try to make their English bases".
[edit] Publication
In September of 1948, Harcourt-Brace published Guard of Honor. There are at least 10 subsequent editions, some with changes (generally the removal of certain colorful sentences).
[edit] References
- Bracher, Frederick. Novels of James Gould Cozzens. Harcourt Brace & Co., 1959.
- Bruccoli, Matthew J. James Gould Cozzens: a Descriptive Bibliography. University of Pittsburgh P., 1981.
- Bruccoli, Matthew J. James Gould Cozzens: A life apart. Harcourt Brace & Co., 1983.
- Bruccoli, Matthew J., ed. A Time of War, Air Force Diaries and Pentagon Memos 1943-45. Boston, Massachusetts: Harvard UP, 1984.
| Preceded by: Tales of the South Pacific by James A. Michener |
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 1949 |
Succeeded by: The Way West by A. B. Guthrie, Jr. |
