Mollie and Other War Pieces

by A.J. Liebling

A. J. Liebling’s coverage of the Second World War for the New Yorker gives us a fresh and unexpected view of the war—stories told in the words of the soldiers, sailors, and airmen who fought it, the civilians who endured it, and the correspondents who covered it. The hero of the title story is a private in the Ninth Army division known as Mollie, short for Molotov, so called by his fellow G.I.s because of his radical views and Russian origins. Mollie was famous for his outlandish dress (long blonde hair, riding boots, feathered beret, field glasses, and red cape), his disregard for army discipline, his knack for acquiring prized souvenirs, his tales of being a Broadway big shot, and his absolute fearlessness in battle. Killed in combat on Good Friday, 1943, Mollie (real Karl Warner) was awarded the Silver Star posthumously. Intrigued by the legend and fascinated by the man behind it, Liebling searched out Mollie’s old New York haunts and associates and found behind the layers of myth a cocky former busboy from Hell’s Kitchen who loved the good life. Other stories take Liebling through air battles in Tunisia, across the channel with the D-Day invasion fleet, and through a liberated Paris celebrating de Gaulle and freedom. Liebling’s war was a vast human-interest story, told with a heart for the feelings of the people involved and the deepest respect for those who played their parts with heroism, however small or ordinary the stage.

Genres: Journalism, Nonfiction, History

286 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

Abbott Joseph "A. J." Liebling was an American journalist who was closely associated with The New Yorker from 1935 until his death.

Reviews

[Bree · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Cynicism is often the shame faced product of inexperience." (Page 24)

"Mollie and Other War Pieces" is a collection of pieces by A.J. Liebling writing during or about his time as a war correspondent in WW2.
His prose is freckled by the same fast-paced jargon that characterizes the few 20th century military writings I've read, making it sometimes difficult to follow for someone who isn't familiar with 1940 German fighter planes or common battle formations. Liebling defiantly proves himself well-versed in the science of war, or at least seems to to those of us unfamiliar with that topic, but the main focus of his pieces are not reports on Allied/Axis positions or movements. Instead, he takes us from one small corner of the World War to the next: A reckless, flamboyant, dead solider; an awkward and oppressed correspondent; a family stowing themselves in a cellar and crawling out a window to escape as the house they worked and saved for years to build was burned down by a senseless band of German soldiers. Libeling expresses the humanity and horrors of war in a detached--though hardly subjective--manner, expressing feelings of confusion, flippantry, burdened carelessness, and fast-paced suddenty that are either trademarks of Liebling's style or of war. He writes with simple, vivid descriptions, and zones in on seemingly insignificant objects to effect thwarted perspective (shiny cans, a bundle of letters from the first World War, a quilt.) His subjects are intriguing and posed with wry humor and subtle solidarity. His stories do not directly tackle the horrors or mechanics of war but rather the small pieces that make up the greater picture. In a way, he gives us perspective: That a battalion is made up of soldiers, that a casualty list is made up of men, that a disaster is made up of reflective canned food. He inserts little of his own emotion, giving readers (his original audience, who would have been paging through his pieces as their friends and family members died in oversees battles) a canvas on which to paint their own anxieties, sorrows, hopes, and questions. Liebling does his job as a journalist, with relative objectivity and impressive storytelling choices and style, and its defiantly save to say that he earned his Pulitzer.

[Robin Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

A J Liebling was an American journalist associated primarily
with the New York Times. These war pieces were interesting.
Some funny or not so funny quotes:
"Our image of Montgomery then was of a dashing fellow. That
was before we had to work with him."
A note that C-rations originally came in shiny tin cans. They
caught the sun and could become targets from several miles
away. "A khaki C-ration can came in later. Nobody in the Source
of Supplies, apparently, had had the imagination to foresee the
tactical disadvantages of the bright ones."

[Heidi Quinn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Liebling used words to succinctly draft a truth of what is, what was, and what could have been, all while filling his writing with a delicious feast of images. His writing is so brimming with flavor that it’s hard to step away from. I always enjoy reading his work.

[Patrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Did I mention that Liebling is, for me, probably the greatest American prose stylist of the 20th Century? These pieces convey the details of war - boredom, fear, terror, corruption, courage, betrayal, kindness, malice, and the steamroller of bureaucracy - in ways that straight history normally elides. Liebling's descriptions are almost always understated and pithy, but they pack a punch. Read this, and everything else he wrote about WWII.