Beach Red

by Peter Bowman

In Beach Red Sergeant Peter Bowman has established a literary beachhead. His brief (122-page) book, December Book-of-the-Month Club co-choice,* is the first novel by a combat author to describe the seizure of a Pacific island from the Japanese. It is the first time that such an action has been narrated in a medium which looks like unrhymed verse but which Author Bowman stoutly insists is sprung prose. Prose or verse, it is the best form in which to tell Author Bowman's story—the thoughts that pass through a soldier's head during one hour of battle.-quote Time magazine--dec. 10, 1945. It is out of print, but used copies can be found. well worth the read today, as in 1945. Was later made in a movie, which is available now on DVD.

Genres: Poetry, Fiction, War, Historical Fiction, World War II, Adult

126 pages, Hardback

First published January 1, 1945

About the author

Peter Bowman was born in Michigan, was educated in Detroit and New York City, and calls Falls Church, Virginia his home. Before entering the service he was an associate editor of Popular Science Monthly and is now a correspondant on the staff of Air Force, the official journal of the Army Air Forces.

Having been educated in engineering, he originally went into that branch of the Army and received an exhaustive training in amphibious landings.

(1945 publication bio)

Reviews

[Noran Miss Pumkin · Rating 5 out of 5]

my father lied about his age to serve in WWII, but a medical issue got him discharged just prior to him being shipped out after his training as a marine. most of his group did not survive their first battle. i am lucky the doctor sent him packing, or i would not be typing right now. the men haunted my father thru the years. he saw boys his son's age go and come back in the 60's and 70's. my brother had a number that was too low for the draft lottery--back then they held it on TV--talk about reality TV shows!?! well, my father wrote poems about the war, though he did not fight--probably his nightmares. he gave me this book one day to read as a teen--till then i led a sheltered life, till then.......
i wish this book would get re-issued today---it tells what our men and women are going thru over there--no matter how noble the cause--it still is hell.

[Terry · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Oh, say, can you see by the dawn's early light
the glimmering haze squatting on its moist gray haunches"

The conflation, in those opening lines, of Francis Scott Key and Carl Sandburg, by direct quote and by allusion, tell much of the author's skill and of what can be expected, at least literarily, from the rest of this novel told in blank verse.

It is not an easy read. The life and death moments are examined in detail with direct intensity. But there is humor, too. For example, chapter 53's comparison between the Army of the parade ground and the Army of the battlefield:

That other army taught men
to walk erect. In this one they learn to crawl.

Chapter 22, with the narrator examining the contents of his wallet before going out on patrol, prefigures Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried.

[Dawn C. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book took me by surprise in that I enjoyed (if tears about war can be enjoyed) the story very much.
'You got up on the wrong side of the world '. The story is about an American soldier in war in Japan in the jungle. It is written in the perspective of the writer dictating your story as if you are the soldier.
'You want to be brave. You also want to be. ' The story tells how the soldier feels and how he thinks about the war he's fighting.
The story is written in such a way that you are transported to the jungle with the troops - an eye-opening view of war.

[Oliver Kim]

I can't remember how I found Beach Red. I think it was on some shortlist somewhere as one of the few written in the second person. The whole thing might be called a prose-poem: it's broken up into 60 chapters, each corresponding to a minute, each line corresponding to an "action", all seen through "your" eyes as you storm some Japanese-held island in the Pacific. I can't speak as to how accurate the combat scenes scenes are (the author apparently never saw combat either), but with some suspension of disbelief the gimmicks work. Beach Red is a passably good war story.

I thought the book was more interesting as a sort of anthropological document, showing what midcentury Americans sounded like. (Mostly the same.) There's some pretty ugly racism throughout, that never really goes examined or challenged. It's easy to draw a through line between the Pacific Theater and the American experience in Vietnam -- both wars were fought in the tropics, against enemies always cast in highly racialized terms (the Japanese are described in this book as wily little brown-skinned fanatics, needing little food or sleep, ready to use dirty tricks to win). Most Americans would agree with me that defeating Imperial Japan was merited, certainly more than fighting the Vietcong. This book (unwittingly) reminded me that, in remembering one war as "clean" and "righteous", the other as "corrupt" and "dirty", we may have severely inflated the distance between how these wars were actually fought on the ground.

[Hannah Belyea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Landing on a Pacific island alongside his fellow American soldiers, one man narrates his experience against the invading Japanese force and their tactics in battle, trying to hold onto his sanity and get his fellow men out alive before their platoon can be overrun. Bowman delivers a thoughtful series of prose that really captures the emotion and atmosphere of war, slightly tangential but enthralling in its balanced use and withdrawal of description. The enemy is skilled, but every chink in their plans is one more step towards victory.

[Jeff Pollock · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reads like a wartime novel, which isn't a surprise. It's a little corny, but there are some well written passages, and its it's short so even if it get hamfisted there is light at the end of the tunnel.

[Jill Bowman · Rating 3 out of 5]

The writing is war. Mesmerizing, brutal, boring, exciting, funny at times and so very upsetting.
That said, I thought it was a bit of a slog to get through this stream of consciousness book. Took me all day for just over 100 pages.

[John · Rating 1 out of 5]

did not like this at all

[Rich Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

I felt I was there

[Patrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most brilliant literary accomplishments to emerge from World War II. Bowman disclaimed that this was a novel in verse, probably because he didn’t want it judged as poetry per se, but it is certainly lineated and rhythmic, so…

[Joanne]

I haven't read this book yet but when I plan to. I found a 1945 copy of the book in my dad's house when we were getting ready to sell it. Can't wait to read it!

[Cjsloki · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing book. It really is one long work poem and yet he gets the jargon of war into the story as well.

[JerryDeanHalleck · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not impressed. Very literary - and the author did not see combat. It shows. Book was well thought of in the 1940's and in 1965 was made into a movie.