Free When Books Went to War by Molly Guptill Manning Page A

Hitler. The Lord of Hosts is waiting, Adolf Hitler.”
    By 1942, the words that Goebbels spoke one dreary night in 1933 had begun to come to fruition, but not as he had hoped. The pile of ashes in Berlin’s Bebelplatz was not forgotten. Those ashes were now a symbol of the freedoms at stake and the danger that the Axis powers presented. Now books would flourish in numbers greater than before. Authors would not be silenced. A new phoenix would arise: an army of words, thoughts, ideas, and books.
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    Within one month of the ninth anniversary of the Berlin book burning, another million books were collected by the VBC. The campaign’s goal had been met. Librarians across the United States celebrated. Letters from appreciative servicemen emphasized what a difference a box of books could make. From Africa, a man wrote “to let you know that your efforts of boosting morale of the troops going overseas are not in vain. On our voyage over here,” he said, “there were thousands of us on the ship, [and] we were all overjoyed beyond words to find that we had some books to read to pass the time during our leisure moments, and there were many.” A lieutenant in the Army Air Corps stationed in Alaska thanked the VBC for not forgetting the men in his remote corner of the war. He noted that, even as he wrote his letter, men were reading the books the VBC had sent, “and I can assure you that they are very grateful.” From the United States Naval Station in Rhode Island, a captain reported that books were being devoured. As the men were not permitted to leave the station, the reading room was one of the few places where they could relax and lose themselves in books.
    As the armed forces swelled in size, however, the need for books grew. Many felt that the VBC, having met its goal, could not simply stop its work. But even its continuing efforts would not be enough. There were two problems: the exhausted supply of donated books and the growing pool of millions of men in the services who needed to travel light. Hardcover books were fine for training libraries, and even onboard battleships. But they weighed down every soldier who had to carry them into the field.
    The VBC struggled for renewal in 1943. It bore the brunt of scathing criticism from Isabel DuBois, the head of the Library Section of the Navy. DuBois oversaw nearly a thousand Navy libraries and eight hospitals, and took great pains in developing lists of quality books with which to stock them. The VBC trespassed on DuBois’s duties, and she did not appreciate the intrusion. She had opposed the 1942 VBC and vehemently resisted the notion of a 1943 campaign. After receiving a shipment of victory books in the summer of 1942, DuBois wrote to Connor that if the books she received were a “sample of the books which have been sorted by librarians, it is the worst indictment of my profession I have ever seen. These were the same titles which I discarded in 1917 and 1918 and the 25 years in between has not made them any more valuable.” She added: “When I think of the tremendous waste in transportation and handling, it leaves me simply appalled. In other words, are gift books worth it? As you know, I never thought they were, but I am more firmly of the opinion than ever.”
    The VBC also faced stiff political opposition from the government’s Charles Taft, who only reluctantly approved funding the campaign again, despite his complaint that he was “positive it is not making an impression in the larger centers.” He was “convinced that this is because the librarian has been made chairman.” “I raised serious questions at the very first meeting as to the use of the librarians in this capacity,” he said. “If this were just a brief drive I would not say anything about it but it is expected to be a continuing effort, and I am satisfied that it is going to bog down unless you establish as a general policy