Customer Reviews

Between Tedium and Terror: A Soldier's World War II Diary, 1943-45

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I was also 18 years old when I was sent to the Pacific and found everything that Sy Kahn wrote. Now at 71 years old I never thougth I was to find so realistic book and brought back so painful and glorius memories. This is my first war book I read and I do not regreted. I did realy enjoy it.

Between Tedium And Terror" by Sy M. Kahn. Subtitled: "A Soldier's World War II Diary, 1943-1945". University Of Illinois Press, 1993.

The writing is excellent which is remarkable since it seems that the book is a verbatim copy of the diaries that Sy Kahn wrote, under stress, more than sixty years ago in the Pacific. The author has included some photo copies of his original, hand-written diaries, and the corresponding text appears to be an exact copy of what he had written during the war. As an engineer, I have written more than 35 technical papers for the IEEE, and I have never been able to go with the first draft. Most writers go through many drafts, and, even then, are not satisfied.

Sy Kahn barely mentions being born and raised in Manhattan (a small island in NYC), but goes directly to his subject matter, with his ship going under the Golden Gate Bridge, September 1943. The author evades a detailed description of basic training and gets directly to the heart of the matter: action in the Pacific. As he records in his introduction, writing and reading kept him sane over the next three years or so. As a result of his fidelity to his diary, we have this excellent book. He records that his outfit, the 244th Port Company, endured some three to four hundred air attacks, and being torpedoed and being shelled by shore guns. The frustration was that his outfit was not equipped to fire back and had to depend on others for their defense. "Thus we alternated between tedium and terror". (page xx).

There are quite a few introspective entries, as Mr. Kahn was a young man, growing up in a restrictive environment, which, while challenging him physically, did not challenge him mentally. He was always looking to learn, (Page 102: "I learned much from the many people I spoke with") and used reading as both a means of learning and as escape from the tedium of "hurry up and wait". Kahn laments the fact that he never knew what it was to be a civilian between the ages of 18 and 21, but, in his later years, ironically, he spends his time teaching college students in the same age bracket.

I liked this book, perhaps because I followed a path similar to Sy Kahn. Born and raised in Manhattan, a small island, I enlisted in the United States Navy after high school (in The Bronx) at the age of 17 years. I, too, could not see the big "E" on the eye chart. I spent much of my Navy time at Naval Air Station, Key West, which was hot enough to give me a nasty case of tropical boils. Unfortunately, I did not keep a diary. Sy Kahn has written a good book that fills in gaps in personal histories of individuals who fought in the Pacific in world War II.

I am the daughter of one of the book's character's (Rafael "Sancho" Sanchez). It was so interesting to read about not only my father's exploits, but the others in the company as well. It brought back many memories of the many stories my father use to tell me about his war experiences. It also brought a real perspective of the trials of war to someone who was born eleven years after it ended. Thank you Sy for bringing me and my family a part of my father we never would have known if you had not told your story.