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.

Greco-Persian Wars

• Xenophon, (Anabasis)

Gallic War

• Julius Caesar, (De Bello Gallico)

Napoleonic Wars

• Jakob Walter

American Civil War

• Ambrose Bierce
• August Hjalmar Edgren
• Walt Whitman Nurse

Mexican Revolution

• Mariano Azuela, (Los de abajo)

World War I

• 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 Hašek, served in Austrian and Czech armies (who were on opposing sides), (The Good Soldier Švejk)
• Ernest Hemingway, drove ambulances in Italy (A Farewell to Arms)
• William Hope Hodgson, Killed by the direct impact of an artillery shell at the Fourth Battle of Ypres (The House on the Borderland)
• Ernst Jünger, (Sturm, Storm of Steel)
• T. E. Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia (Seven Pillars of Wisdom)
• C. S. Lewis, British Army, Third Battalion Somerset Light Infantry, served in trench warfare at Somme Valley (The Chronicles of Narnia)
• A. A. Milne, British Army, British Home Guard
• Emilio Lussu, (Sardinian Brigade)
• H. E. L. Mellersh, infantry officer in the East Lancashire Regiment (Schoolboy Into War)
• Wilfred Owen
• Erich Maria Remarque, infantry soldier, wounded in Passchendaele (All Quiet on the Western Front)
• Ludwig Renn, company commander, and a field battalion commander, Saxon Guard Regiment ("Krieg", "Nachkrieg", "War")
• Siegfried Sassoon, infantry officer in the Royal Welch Fusiliers (Memoirs of an Infantry Officer)
• J. R. R. Tolkien, Lancashire Fusiliers, served in trench warfare at Somme Valley, Battle at Thiepval Ridge and assault on Schwaben Redoubt (The Lord of the Rings), 2nd Lt.
• Lajos Zilahy, (Century in Scarlet)
• Joyce Kilmer, killed during the Second Battle of Marne
• Adolf Hitler, served as a lance corporal in the Bavarian Army

Spanish Civil War

• Alvah Bessie, volunteer, served in the Abraham Lincoln XV International Brigade on the Republican side (Men In Battle; A Story Of Americans In Spain)
• Arthur Koestler, interned by the Nationalists
• Laurie Lee, served on the Republican side (A Moment of War)
• George Orwell, served and wounded on the Republican side (Homage to Catalonia)
• Albert Prago, volunteer, served in the Abraham Lincoln XV International Brigade on the Republican side (Our fight : writings by veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, Spain, 1936–1939)
• Gustaf Munch-Petersen, served and died in the International Brigades

World War II

• Brian Aldiss, Royal Corps of Signals, saw action in Burma (Non-Stop, [No Time Like Tomorrow])
• Kingsley Amis, Royal Corps of Signals (Lucky Jim)
• Philip Appleman
• Ashley Bryan, Operation Overlord, Omaha Beach (Artist and Author, Wrote Infinite Hope: A Black Artist's Journey from World War II to Peace about his experiences )
• Isaac Asimov, Philadelphia Navy Yard Naval Air Experimentation Station, United States Army (Foundation)
• J. G. Ballard, interned as a boy in Shanghai (Empire of the Sun)
• Capt. Edward L. Beach, Jr., United States Navy (Run Silent, Run Deep)
• Earle Birney, Canadian Army (Turvey)
• Pierre Boulle, British Special Forces (Bridge on the River Kwai)
• Flt. Lt. Arthur C. Clarke, Royal Air Force (2001: A Space Odyssey)
• Col. Hal Clement, pilot Consolidated B-24 Liberator, 68th Bomb Squadron, 44th Bomb Group, 8th Air Force, European Theatre (Mission of Gravity)
• L. Sprague de Camp, Philadelphia Navy Yard Naval Air Experimentation Station (Lest Darkness Fall) pilot
• Roald Dahl, Royal Air Force, saw combat in the Mediterranean and was a flying ace. Wrote Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
• Anthony Faramus, survived Fort de Romainville, Buchenwald and Mauthausen concentration camps (Journey Into Darkness. 1990)
• Frank Kelly Freas, United States Army Air Forces, South Pacific
• Samuel Fuller, – (The Big Red One)
• H. L. Gold, United States Army (Beyond Fantasy Fiction)
• William Golding, participated in the invasion of Normandy on D-Day, commanding a landing ship that fired salvoes of rockets onto the beaches, and was in action at Walcheren at which 23 out of 24 assault craft were sunk. (Lord of the Flies)
• .Günter Grass Nobel Prize 1999, Waffen-SS, Germany. Tin Drum
• James Gunn (author), U.S. Navy (This Fortress World)
• Dashiell Hammett, was assigned to Army Intelligence on the Aleutian Islands. He assisted in writing Battle of the Aleutians... He went on to write a number of detective novels
• Sven Hassel, Danish-born penal regiment soldier
• Robert A. Heinlein, Lt., graduate of the United States Naval Academy. Served in U.S. Navy aboard USS Lexington (CV-2), USS Roper (DD-147), Philadelphia Navy Yard (Stranger in a Strange Land)
• Joseph Heller, served in 12th Air Force (Catch-22)
• Herman Wouk, served in the Navy, Pacific (The Caine Mutiny)
• Frank Herbert, U.S. Navy Seabees (Dune)
• James Herriot, served in the Royal Air Force
• L. Ron Hubbard, U.S. Navy (The Way to Happiness)
• James Jones (author), 25th Infantry Division, United States Army, Pearl Harbor, Guadalcanal (From Here to Eternity, The Thin Red Line)
• Lt.Col Jorma Karhunen, Finnish fighter ace and Mannerheim Cross awardee, a notable fiction and history author
• Cyril M. Kornbluth, United States Army. Bronze Star recipient for service as heavy machine gunner at the Battle of the Bulge (The Space Merchants)
• R. A. Lafferty, 1st Sgt., United States Army Pacific Theatre (Fourth Mansions)
• Alistair MacLean, Royal Navy (HMS Ulysses)
• Sgt. Väinö Linna, served in the Finnish army
• 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)
• Samuel Menashe, United States Army, served in the Battle of the Bulge.
• Nicholas Monsarrat, served in the Royal Navy
• Sgt. Frederik Pohl, United States Army Air Forces, 456th Bombardment Group, European Theatre (Gateway)
• Douglas Reeman, served in the Royal Navy
• Cornelius Ryan, war correspondent in the US Army
• J.D. Salinger, United States Army, 12th Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Division, active at Utah Beach on D-Day, in the Battle of the Bulge, and the Battle of Hürtgen Forest. (The Catcher in the Rye)
• Harvey Shapiro, United States Army Air Force, flew 35 combat missions over Europe as a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress tail gunner and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross
• Col. Konstantin Simonov, Soviet Army (The Immortal Garrison)
• C.J.R. Tolkien, served in the Fleet Air Arm
• Leon Uris, United States Marine Corps, Pacific Theatre, Guadalcanal, Tarawa (Battle Cry)
• A. E. van Vogt, Canadian Department of National Defence (Slan)
• Pvt. Gore Vidal, United States Army (Julian)
• Pvt. Kurt Vonnegut, United States Army infantry soldier, 423rd Infantry Regiment, 106th Infantry Division, captured during the Battle of the Bulge, survived bombing of Dresden as a POW (Slaughterhouse Five)
• Lt. Evelyn Waugh, Royal Marines, later Royal Horse Guards served in Crete and Yugoslavia (Men at Arms, The End of the Battle)
• Jack Williamson, U.S. Army Air Corps (Darker Than You Think)
• William Woodruff was a Major in the 24th Guards Brigade of the British 1st Infantry Division at Anzio. Vessel of Sadness is based on his experience of the battle.
• Cpl. John Wyndham, Royal Corps of Signals, landed at Normandy (The Day of the Triffids)
• Richard Yates (novelist)

Korean War

• "Richard Hooker"

First Indochina War

• Pierre Schoendoerffer

Vietnam War

• David Drake
• David Hackworth, in US Army (Vietnam Primer, About Face, Steel My Soldiers' Hearts)
• Joe Haldeman
• Gustav Hasford
• Ron Kovic
• Karl Marlantes, US Marine Corps (What it is Like to Go to War, Matterhorn)
• Tim O'Brien
• James Robinson Risner
• Senator Jim Webb
• Tobias Wolff
• Stephen Wright
• Robert Jordan US Army helicopter gunner

Falklands War

• Robert Lawrence, (When The Fighting Is Over)

Gulf War

• "Andy McNab"
• "Chris Ryan"
• Anthony Swofford, in US Marines (Jarhead (book))

Iraq War

• Colby Buzzell

Afghanistan War

• Weston Ochse

See also

• List of military writers – people who write about war but did not necessarily serve in war