Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Dudley C. Gould, historian, author (1920-2010)


Dudley C. Gould, historian, author (1920-2010) Chronicler of “Hitler is a jerk, Hitler is a jerk”

By Walter Haan, www.war-books.com, www.southfarmpress.com

Word has come of the death of Dudley C. Gould, author of seven nonfiction books published by Southfarm Press. He was 90 years old and died a few weeks ago. I don’t have the exact date he died as everyone I’ve contacted about it doesn’t seem to know the date!

Dud was a creative writer, author, painter, sculptor. Heavily opinionated about all those subjects, he was passionate about writing popular American histories concerning the American Revolutionary War without footnotes getting in readers’ ways.

He is remembered here for calling our editor a Commakazee as she punctuated Times of Brother Jonathan (ISBN 978-0-913337-40-0; 2001). But he was a talented historian. His most successful volumes for us were about his experiences fighting in the Korean War. In my opinion, these books are brilliantly written and The Military Book Club evidently agreed with me by offering one of them.

Dudley C. Gould joined the Royal Canadian Army before World War II, transferring after Pearl Harbor to the US Army Air Corps where he was a tail gunner in a B-26 Marauder bomber in North Africa and Britain. Gould later transferred to the infantry in France where he received a commission.

He was recalled to active duty in 1951 and, following a year of combat with the 2nd Infantry Division in Korea, decided to remain in the service and establish himself as a military writer. He wrote a column on US military history for Army Times and, during a tour in the US Army Information Office in Japan, prepared a course syllabus for the University of Maryland about American military history.

While stationed at Fort Devens in Massachusetts in the late 1950s, Gould began his exhaustive research on the War of Independence in the stacks of Boston’s Public Library. Times of Brother Jonathan, is one of the results of those years of research.

His 2002 war memoir, Follow Me Up Fools Mountain (ISBN 978-0-913337-47-9), recounts the action he participated in as part of the 2nd Infantry Division during the Korean War. The Military Book Club issued its book club edition of Follow Me Up Fools Mountain in 2003 and the book was offered by The Book-of-the-Month Club that year too.

Recipient of the Silver Star, Soldiers Medal, Bronze Star and Purple Heart, Gould had resided in San Antonio, Texas.

As I was his publisher for eight years, I received a lot of correspondence from Dud, most of it revealing and interesting. The following paragraphs are among my favorites from his letters.

“I have considered writing my autobiography—more interesting than some others already printed. I remember being hoisted up on the right wing of Winnie Mae, the all white, record breaking stubby airplane which Wiley Post flew around the world in seven days, to shake the hand of Wiley. I was 13 and was repulsed as I looked up at and in the black hole behind one eye patch. My father was Secretary of the Watertown, New York Chamber of Commerce in charge of the welcome committee as Wiley flew around the States on his victory route.

“That same year, 1933, I stood on the banks of the St. Lawrence River at Cape Vincent, New York to watch the 24 war planes of the Italian Air Force’s Lieutenant General Italio Bilboa, Governor of Libya, flying at about 10,000 feet along the Canadian side. They were on their way to the fair at Chicago, intimidating as they flew in combat formation.

“We watched our movie screens as the brave Italian Army thrust their two-man tanks at the tall, spear throwing Abyssinians. A couple of years later the bully Russians tried it against the white clad Finns and were beaten back to the loud cheers of us patrons of the Pathe News.

“Movieland is where we witnessed the beginning of World War II, where I got the idea of personally trying to stop that dirty, boastful sonofabitch! Hitler.

“Kids went around singing—

“Hitler is a jerk, Hitler is a jerk,
Mussolini broke his weenie
And now it will not work.”

Dud, thank you for your service and creativity.

All seven of Dudley C. Gould’s books published by Southfarm Press can be purchased from us at our Web Sites.

--Copyright © 2010 by Walter Haan, www.war-books.com, www.southfarmpress.com

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