I Will Tell No War Stories
What Our Fathers Left Unsaid About World War II
Howard Mansfield, Lyons Press, 2024, 160 pages
Book Review published on: May 20, 2025
When a war veteran returns home, they are faced with many decisions. One of the most personal is how much of their own wartime experience they want to share with family and friends. Many decide that their service is best to not by shared and discussed with others. The reasons for their silence are certainly diverse and complicated. Again, it is a highly personal decision which has obvious ramifications to the individual and quite possibly to their family and friends.
One veteran who decided not to address his experiences as a B-24 Bomber gunner in World War II to his family was Pincus Mansfield. It is this service and a son's quest to learn of it which is the foundation of Howard Mansfield's superb volume, I Will Tell No War Stories: What Our Fathers Left Unsaid About World War II. It is a book which readers will find exhaustively researched, superbly written, and incredibly captivating.
The story of how the book became a book must be the start of this review. Throughout Howard Mansfield's life it was understood that his father would not speak about his experiences in World War II. It was also recognized that no family member would ask Pincus any questions about his World War II service. Consequently, Howard did not develop much of an interest in the war. This would change in later years because of two events in his life.
Mansfield addresses these events in the volume's introduction. He utilizes the book's initial paragraph to set the conditions perfectly for this discussion. He states,
I discovered my father's war twice. The first time at an eighteenth-century pub in Wales and the second, back home, in a dresser drawer, a year before he died. Neither time was I looking for his war, or anything to do with World War II. Nor was I burning to know about his earlier life. Growing up I had heard about his boyhood and knew and liked his boyhood buddies. They were still his friends. But his story came and found me in bits and pieces, in the few things he had said, and in the many things he hadn't said. His war years were both absent and present, so incomplete that it would take me years to even find the outline.
As highlighted above, the author's first discovery of his father's war was in an old pub in Wales. While he was enjoying a pint, he sparked up a conversation with a gentleman. During their discussion, Mansfield mentioned that his father was part of a B-24 crew. This led to the man insisting Mansfield join him and the flying club of which he was a part to watch the British film Target for Tonight. The film focuses on a Wellington bomber and its crew and the many traumatic events it experienced. It was a movie which stuck with Mansfield because it provided him a glimpse of what his father may have experienced himself in his B-24 bomber.
The second event occurred ten years later. As Mansfield's father's health began to decline, his family convinced him to move into a veterans' home. The family then had the arduous task of cleaning the only home the family had ever lived in. As you would expect, the sheer volume of "stuff" was nearly overwhelming and numerous memories were brought back. Additionally, there were many surprises as things were uncovered and discovered.
One surprise which particularly impacted Mansfield was the discovery of a group of notebook pages. The author details this finding in the following passage. He states,
Cleaning up one day, in a small drawer with his cufflinks and tie clips, I found some small, unlined, pocket-sized notebook pages, folded over and tossed aside, sitting as they had for almost sixty-five years. It was an account of each bomber mission he had flown as had recorded it when he was nineteen and twenty years old. I had no idea such a record even existed. I quickly read through it, drank it down in a gulp. Some of the missions he flew were harrowing, marked by attacking fighters, anti-aircraft cannon blowing holes in his plane, and wounding crewman.
The author's discovery spurred a strong desire in himself to fill in the gaps of the pages he read. To fill in these gaps, he dedicated himself to a serious regimen of research. This research included dissecting copious amounts of microfilmed records, conducting interviews with people who he believed could assist in his quest, and procuring books and materials from relevant museum curators and librarians. These in total set the conditions for Mansfield to put together the story of his father's service.
In doing so, he has organized the volume into essentially three sections for readers. In the first, he has focused on concisely addressing his dad's upbringing and his military training prior to his World War II service. The second portion, and obviously the preponderance of the book, keys on his father's service. Finally, the author concludes with a postscript and a reflection on why his father (and many of the greatest generation) did not share details of their service with others.
There are two factors that greatly assist Mansfield in telling the story. First is the organization of the volume. Throughout the book, the author interweaves his research on numerous areas tied to his father's service with excerpts from his dad's diary. These blend perfectly and augment one another.
The second factor is the author's writing ability. Mansfield is a highly established writer who possesses an outstanding body of work which includes a dozen previous books. He writes in an incredibly conversant style which is certainly ideal for this book. You will be hard-pressed to find a more readable book than I Will Tell No War Stories.
I believe this is valuable book to readers for several reasons. First, Mansfield provides an excellent synopsis on the role of the B-24 bomber during World War II. It is also a book that offers an intriguing look at the innerworkings of a crew (be it on a vehicle or airplane) in wartime. Finally, the author shares his insights on what he learned of World War II veterans and their apprehension about sharing their experiences during the war.
Obviously, this book is also incredibly important to Howard Mansfield. The entire journey from his research work to putting "pen to paper" must have been a powerful experience for him. As most of us have experienced personally, the more you find out about your parents, the more you learn about yourself. Certainly, the development of this volume has been instrumental in the author clearly understanding his father better. This in turn, must have led to a better understanding of himself.
In summary, this a superb book which will appeal and benefit a wide array of readers. The combination of superb research, organization, and writing make I Will Tell No War Stories a special volume. I am certain this will be one of best books you have read in some time.
Book Review written by: Lt. Col Rick Baillergeon, U.S. Army, Retired, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas