The battle is the pay-off [Paperback]

Ralph Ingersoll (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Popular Library (1943)
• ASIN: B00005VIDQ
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,454,733 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Ernie Pyle of North Africa, April 6, 2002

By 

David Butterfield "botteville" (Massachusetts) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The battle is the pay-off (Paperback)

Captain Ingersoll represents a point of view we haven't seen in this country for 50 years, but now may again be relevant. The United States army is the American people at war. Ingersoll takes us through the details of adjusting to the army and life in the outdoors and finally of going into battle. He states many of the operational details in the same way that Ernie Pyle used to do in "This is your war." Ingersoll is convinced of the righteousness of his cause against an evil enemy and takes for granted the same opinions in his countrymen. The book exudes victory at every line. There are no graphics, except that the end papers give a large map of the North African campaign as he knows it. This is a good primary historical source.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Terrific writing about how the army (in WWII) really works, August 15, 2007

By 

John A. Lefcourte (Reno, NV USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

Ingersoll worked for Time magazine and then was the Editor of PM magazine, He's an excellent writer and accompanied the Rangers on combat assignment in North Africa. He served as an officer in the engineers, not as a correspondent but wasn't permanently assigned to combat units. The book was written during the war to give the public "back home" a real view of what makes an army a successful army. Remember our army essentially started from scratch in WWII and was mostly draftees.

3 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The story of a very good army -- believe in it, November 20, 2005

By 

Theodore A. Rushton (PHOENIX, Arizona United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The battle is the pay-off (Paperback)

Unlike Dick Cheney who had the guts to earn five deferments during the Vietnam war, this book is by a World War I veteran whose sense of duty to his country led him to volunteer for combat in World War II.

He got his wish. Going into combat he wrote, "No one will believe how beautiful it was on that march after the moon came out, so beautiful it made you forget the war." After being bombed by Ju-87s, who attacked because there was no American air cover, he wrote about the death of one fellow soldier, "...you would not have noticed the pile of grey shredded fabric except for a foot and a shoe with no body attached to it . . . . . There was no blood whatsoever. All the blood had been blown out of the man who had worn this shoe. He was shredded and the pile of shreds was coated with the gray dust of pulverized rock."

It's a book vivid in its descriptions of combat. Anyone writing anything like it today would be attacked by the Cheney crowd for virulent un-Americanism. Near the end, he quotes an article by A. J. Leibling of 'The New Yorker' describing an attack by tanks of the Tenth Panzer Division, saying they "advance hesitatingly, like diffident fat boys coming across the floor at a party to ask for the next dance, stopping at the slightest excuse, going back, and then coming on again, and always apparently seeking the longest way around . . . . . they are timid creatures."

Ingersoll spares nothing. In today's hysteria, he'd be accused of comforting the enemy or whitewashing the war, depending on whose agenda was riffled. Instead, his book was a reassurance that an allied victory was inevitable even though it would cost hundreds of thousands of American lives. He also pointed out the US had life very easy compared to the price paid by Britain, Russia and other allies.

Ingersoll was a well-known and controversial newspaper editor before the war. His book is much more than a "What I saw on my visit to the war", his unsparing reality shows "This is how and why things happen in combat." It centers on one two-day battle, but that is enough to prove his faith in a US army "that fights death and cynicism in the name of life and hope. It is a good army. Believe in it."

Almost two centuries ago, Wellington said the Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton; today, on a similar basis, the situation in Vietnam and Iraq was created in the Oval Office. President Harry Truman knew where the buck stops; Ingersoll offers a vivid reminder of the impact of decisions made by people who should have faced combat so they could appreciate the price paid by the military.

His assessment still applies to the US military, if not to the leadership in politics or the media. It's a reminder of what good reporting can be when it is good, just as the current situation in Iraq is a reflection of contemporary political leadership. It's vivid writing shows the full impact of combat.