List of authors in war
Many of the authors that served in various real-life wars (and survived) wrote stories that are at least somewhat based on their own experiences. Some of them are outright memoirs or fictionalized accounts of their exploits.
- Henri Barbusse, served in France (Under Fire)
- E. E. Cummings, volunteer ambulance driver (The Enormous Room)
- Robert Graves, infantry officer in the Royal Welch Fusiliers (Goodbye to All That)
- Jaroslav Hasek, served in Austrian and Czech armies (who were on opposing sides), (The Good Soldier Svejk)
- Ernest Hemingway, drove ambulances in Italy (A Farewell to Arms)
- Thomas E. Lawrence, Arabian Lawrence (Seven Pillars of Wisdom)
- Erich Maria Remarque, infantry soldier, wounded in Passendale (All Quiet on the Western Front)
- Siegfried Sassoon, infantry officer in the Royal Welch Fusiliers (Memoirs of an Infantry Officer)
- Laurie Lee, served on the Republican side (A Moment of War)
- George Orwell, served and wounded on the Republican side (Homage to Catalonia)
- J. G. Ballard, interned boy in a Shanghai (Empire of the Sun)
- Pierre Boulle, in British Special Forces (Bridge on the River Kwai)
- Samuel Fuller – (The Big Red One)
- Sven Hassel, Danish-born penal regiment soldier
- Joseph Heller, served in 12th Air Force (Catch-22)
- Alistair MacLean, in the Royal Navy (HMS Ulysses)
- Norman Mailer, served in South Pacific (The Naked and the Dead)
- Harry Martinson, Swedish volunteer in Winter War (Verklighet Till Döds)
- John Masters Gurkha officer, served in North Africa and Burma with the Chindits (Bhowani Junction, The Road Past Mandalay)
- Leon Uris, in United States Marine Corps (Battle Cry)
- Gore Vidal, in US Army (Williwaw)
- Kurt Vonnegut, US infantry soldier, survived bombing of Dresden as a POW (Slaughterhouse Five)
- Evelyn Waugh, in Royal Marines, later Royal Horse Guards served in Crete and Yugoslavia (Men at Arms, The End of the Battle)
- David Hackworth, in US Army (Vietnam Primer, About Face, Steel My Soldiers' Hearts)