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

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 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)
• Ernst Jünger
• 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)
• Emilio Lussu, (Sardinian Brigade)
• H. E. L. Mellersh, infantry officer in the East Lancashire Regiment (Schoolboy Into War)
• Erich Maria Remarque, infantry soldier, wounded in Passchendaele (All Quiet on the Western Front)
• Siegfried Sassoon, infantry officer in the Royal Welch Fusiliers (Memoirs of an Infantry Officer)
• 2nd Lt. 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)
• Lajos Zilahy, (Century in Scarlet)

Spanish Civil War

• 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)

World War II

• SSgt. 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)
• Brian Aldiss, Royal Corps of Signals, saw action in Burma (Non-Stop, [No Time Like Tomorrow])
• Kingsley Amis, Royal Corps of Signals (Lucky Jim)
• 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, in British Special Forces (Bridge on the River Kwai)
• Flt. Lt. Arthur C. Clarke, Royal Air Force (2001: A Space Odyssey)
• Col. Hal Clement, pilot 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)
• 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. United States Army (Lord of the Flies)
• James Gunn (author), U.S. Navy (This Fortress World)
• Sven Hassel, Danish-born penal regiment soldier
• Lt. Robert A. Heinlein, 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)
• Frank Herbert, U.S. Navy Seabees (Dune)
• 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])
• Cyril M. Kornbluth, United States Army. Bronze Star recipient for service as heavy machine gunner at the Battle of the Bulge (The Space Merchants)
• 1st Sgt. R. A. Lafferty, United States Army Pacific Theatre (Fourth Mansions)
• 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)
• Nicholas Monsarrat
• Sgt. Frederik Pohl, United States Army Air Forces, 456th Bombardment Group, European Theatre (Gateway)
• Col. Konstantin Simonov, Soviet Army (The Immortal Garrison)
• 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, in 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)
• Cpl. John Wyndham, Royal Corps of Signals, landed at Normandy (The Day of the Triffids)
• Capt. Vasily Zaytsev, Soviet Navy, Soviet Army, 1047th Rifle Regiment, 284th Rifle Division, 62nd Army; subject of (Enemy at the Gates)
• Samuel Menashe, United States Army, served in the Battle of the Bulge.
• Philip Appleman
• Harvey Shapiro, United States Army Air Force, flew 35 combat missions over Europe as a B-17 tail gunner and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.

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
• Ron Kovic
• Karl Marlantes, US Marine Corps (What it is Like to Go to War, Matterhorn)
• Gregory H. Murray, US Army (Content With My Wages, A Sergeant's Story: Book I-Vietnam)
• Tim O'Brien
• James Robinson Risner
• Senator Jim Webb
• Tobias Wolff

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

• Gregory H. Murray, US Army
• Weston Ochse

See also

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