By Howard Bahr. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (July 23).
Among the finer memoirs of World War II are those by enlisted soldiers, sailors and Marines at the sharp end of combat. They dispel the romantic aura that too often surrounds our collective memory of that conflict. They offer no “greatest generation” nonsense: only loss, violence, and the anguish of young souls tried almost beyond endurance. 
These qualities lie at the heart of an outstanding new work, Rocky Boyer’s War: An Unvarnished History of the Air Blitz that Won the War in the Southwest Pacific(Naval Institute Press, 2017), by Allen Boyer. Roscoe Boyer, Allen Boyer’s father, was not an enlisted man, and the book is but partially a memoir. Nevertheless, this work will find its place among the great eye-level accounts of World War II.
In his long and productive life (1919-2008), Roscoe Boyer would become an inventor, an early student of computers, a senior professor in the University of Mississippi School of Education, and an advocate for public schools in Mississippi. Of course, this was all in the future when he was caught in the draft after Pearl Harbor.
Rocky Boyer was commissioned a lieutenant in the Fifth Air Force and served in the Southwest Pacific from November 1943 to November 1945–not so long in civilian life, but an eternity at the sharp end. While in the service, he kept a diary, which was, and continues to be, against regulations. Lucky for us, Boyer was not much troubled by regulations–one of his many virtues–nor did he allow them to interfere with his duty. In addition, his junior rank recommends him. The recollections of those above the rank of captain should be eyed with suspicion.
Those who have served will recognize the hardship, the annoyances, the petty squabbles and unearned privileges of colonels and generals, tension between officers and enlisted men, homesickness, sweethearts sorely missed, and the loss of friends in combat. Those who have not served will be usefully entertained. All readers will shake their heads at the folly and come to understand why, later in life, Boyer’s favorite novel was Catch-22.
While Rocky Boyer’s War has universal appeal, the book is important for its historical specificity. In a unique synthesis of personal remembrance and history, Allen Boyer locates excerpts from his father’s diary within the broader context of the campaigns in the Southwest Pacific. The result is a concise, yet comprehensive, narrative of operations crucial to victory over Japan, but largely forgotten today.
Howard Bahr of Jackson is a veteran of the Navy’s amphibious war in Vietnam.
Allen Boyer signs Rocky Boyer’s War on Thursday, July 25 at Lemuria at 5:00 p.m.
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