When We Were One: Stories of World War II

by W.C. Heinz

Book Overview

W. C. Heinz is one of the great sports writers of the past half-century, but few people know that before he began his sportswriting career he served as a war correspondent for the New York Sun. No less an authority than Stephen E. Ambrose has said of Heinz that both he and Ernie Pyle were the two best journalists to cover World War II. Now for the first time ever, Heinz's finest reporting both during and after the war is collected in one volume. From a first-person account of the scene aboard the U.S.S. Nevada during D-Day (the very same ship that plied the waters at Pearl Harbor) to a six-part series on conducting a night attack to an account of the shooting of several German spies, we are given an up-close-and-personal chronicle of the action by a reporter who was in the thick of it all. Few writers conveyed as vividly as Heinz the heroic efforts of GI's in the face of battle; the sheer humanity, humor, and courage displayed by so many. When We Were All One is a superb collection of war reporting and commentary that ranks with the finest ever assembled on any war.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0306811154
• ISBN13: 9780306811159
• Release Date: May 2002
• Publisher: Da Capo Press
• Length: 262 Pages
• Weight: 0.99 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.7" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Moving

The late Bill Heinz was a great writer. I read this book straight through without stopping. He will be greatly missed.

Not an Ernie Pyle but very worthwhile reading

This is a remarkable recently published book of short stories gleaned from this ETO war correspondents dispatches during WWII. The book is organized into 3 sections: Dispatches from 1944, 1945 and after the war is over. The "Dispatches" sections sometimes seem repetitive until you realize that they were published in a serial format, so each had to stand on it's own yet they were a continuing story. So the author had to "recap" sometimes what had happened so a new reader would be able to follow along. The "After the War" section is presented with current narration in regular type and the wartime writing in italics. It is a nice way to "flashback" while the author is revisiting locations that had wartime memories to him. Some of these were written for publication in national magazines in the 50's and 60's. I especially enjoyed the authors relating a visit to Point du Hoc in 1954 with the Commanding Officer of the Ranger Battalion that assaulted the cliffs there on D-Day, James Rudder, and Rudder's 14-year-old son. His final story ends with a sad poignancy that is suitable for a book of wartime remembrances. I recommend this book highly to anyone interested in WWII history.