A Tale of a Tail Gunner: Louis Falstein and “Face of a Hero”
Sergeant Louis Falstein, Manduria, Italy, November, 1944
Sometimes, you have to change your routine…
The great majority of my posts at TheyWereSoldiers have approached the subject of Jews in the military though biographical records, photographs, official documents, and in a few cases, interviews of veterans. But, there’s far more to a man’s life than a straightforward recitation of dates, places, and events. His thoughts and beliefs; his understanding of the world around him, let alone his “own” interior world, may only germinate well after an event has actually occurred, regardless of whether that event – at least in the unknowing eyes of others – is mundane or dramatic.
And through this self-understanding, whether expressed in prose, poetry, the visual arts – or perhaps the irony of silence? – we can sometimes understand the nature of an era better, than through a nominal recitation of purely factual information. (People, after all, can’t be reduced to mere numbers. Though in 2022 many in the Managerial Professional Class would ardently wish it were so.) One way of understanding the past – a very well-known way, at that – is through the novel.
Louis Falstein’s 1950 novel Face of a Hero is a case in point. With a bent towards writing well before the Second World War, Falstein, an aerial gunner in the 723rd Bomb Squadron of the 450th “Cottontails” Bomb Group, found in military service the inspiration for this work, his first published book. Despite having received favorable to excellent reviews, his novel rapidly faded from prominence, only really returning to the public eye – and that, temporarily – in 1999. This came about as the result of questions about the origin of another novel: Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, a work which has had enormous and continuing cultural and literary impact; a work – despite superficial similarities – utterly different in style and far more importantly ethos than Falstein’s novel.
Face of a Hero merits a deeper view for what it reveals about Jewish military service in WW II; for its portrayal of WW II aerial combat from the vantage point of an enlisted man; for the way that the author built a fictional world from one of fact. To that end, the following eleven (yep, count ’em, eleven!) posts cover different aspects of the novel, its author, and (to a limited extent), Catch-22.
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[But first!…
…though this post was created on October 7, 2022, only yesterday – on October 18 – did I make a most fortuitous discovery: An audio interview of Louis Falstein by Warren Bower of WNYC Radio recorded on February 3, 1951. This 23-minute-long interview is “Archives Item 69684 / Municipal Archives Item LT715”.]
In conversation with Louis Falstein, Mr. Bower, of New York University’s School of Continuing Education, at first asks about how the novel was constructed.
It’s revealed that though Louis initially considered presenting his story from the vantage point of every one of the ten aviators in the crew of B-24 Liberator Flying Foxhole, this approach was rejected because he didn’t want to write a first novel that was “sprawling”.
So, he related and universalized the story through one man only – Ben Isaacs – to maintain “constant and dramatic movement” in the novel. In turn, Mr. Bower suggests that Isaacs, “…is not more important than the other members of the crew,” to which author Falstein agrees. However, Falstein adds that by “knowing” Isaacs better than the other nine crewmen and showing what he lived through, felt, thought, and learned, another dimension would emerge from the novel.
Stepping away from the novel’s contents, Mr. Bower addresses something ostensibly simple yet quite fundamental: The origin of the book’s title. When asked about the very meaning of “Face of a Hero”, Falstein replies that the title is intended to be realistic and not symbolic. “A hero is comprised of many things. A ‘hero’ is a very human, being, subject to many doubts, and many fears. Ben Isaacs knew why he fought, and that is part of being a hero.”
Mr. Bower’s observations about the novel mirror those of several reviewers, specifically in terms of the book’s explicit (at least, for the time!) use of language. When asked about this, Louis stated that the book reflected the reality of language as it was actually spoken by combat airmen, and that he didn’t want to forego linguistic realism. This included the use of the phrase “a man went down,” rather than the irrevocably grim expression “having been killed”, for all but the most unambiguous circumstances pertaining to the loss of an aircrew.
Ultimately, when asked about the motivation for continuing to fly combat missions despite one’s ambivalence about his ability to serve as an airman, or, in the face of the enemy, Louis stated that, “Indoctrination and knowing that one has a just cause gives one a great deal of so-called ‘courage’, that one might lack,” adding that Ben Isaacs felt as if he were reborn on the end of his fiftieth mission.
Mr. Bower concludes his interview with thoughts similar to those of the novel’s reviewers, for he admires the way the book is written: Simply, unostentatiously, and with no fancy style, but powerfully and impressively.
Though the radio program is about 23 minutes long, Mr. Bower’s interview of Louis Falstein only comprises its first eighteen minutes. The final five minutes pertain to two recent books; fiction and non-fiction respectively. The first is Ernest Hemingway’s latest work, Over the River and Into the Trees, of which Bower is highly critical (really – wow!), deeming the novel, “…a colossal bore,” suggesting that the author’s heart simply wasn’t in the work, which is simply a very thin autobiography. The second book, coming in for very high praise, is Thor Heyerdahl’s Kon-Tiki.
Here’s Mr. Bower’s obituary, from The New York Times:
WARREN BOWER, TEACHER; WAS HOST OF RADIO SHOW
October 29, 1976
Warren Bower, professor emeritus of English and a former assistant dean of New York University’s School of Continuing Education, died Tuesday at St. Vincent’s Hospital. He was 78 years old and lived at the Salmagundi Club, at 45 Fifth A venue.
Mr. Bower was well known as the host of a WNYC radio program, “The Reader’s Almanac,” which offered interviews with authors between 1938 and 1967. In 1962 he was given the Peabody Award for the show, which reflected his deep interest in books and authors.
He was born in Elkhart, Ind., and graduated from Hillsdale College in 1920. He earned his master’s degree from the University of Michigan in 1923.
Mr. Bower was the author of “The College Writer,” “New Directions” and “How to Write for Pleasure and Profit.”
He is survived by his wife, Lesley.
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And now (…minor drum roll, please…) here are the posts. They are…
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1. A Tale of a Tail Gunner: Louis Falstein and “Face of a Hero” (This post!)
2: A Mirror of The Past (How I discovered Catch-22, and, Face of a Hero)
3: Louis Falstein’s War in the Air… Before, During, and After (Biographical overview of Louis Falstein’s life, focusing on his military service.)
4: First Published Writings: “Molto Buono”, and, “The New Republic”
5: The Events of the Novel (List and descriptions of characters in the novel; chronological list of events and details in the story)
6: Excerpts From the Novel – An Aviator’s Life and Thoughts
7: Excerpts From the Novel – Jewish Aviators at War
8: An Excerpt From the Novel – The Edge of Survival
9: The Art of The Novel (Cover and interior art of first (1950) edition of the novel, and its four subsequent editions.)
10: Book Reviews
11: After The Hero: Later Books (Illustrations of covers of Louis Falstein’s later works, with details about some.)
12: When Parallels Diverge – “Catch 22” and “Face of a Hero”
13: “Catch-22” In The Perspective of History
14: A Still, Small Voice; A Still, Small Novel
I’ll post these essays sequentially, rather than all at once, and link them to this introductory post, as I do so.
Here goes…
(Note: I want to thank Saul Schwarz for his “suggestion”: “Thanks, Saul!”)