Written for the newspaper in 1942, and illustrated by the author with cartoon drawings. It was interesting enough to finish, but became a bit tedious for me. St. George describes in detail what it is like to be in the army in a foreign country while waiting to be sent into action. In the last chapter, they are finally called to action and we see/read none of it. ( )

This fit in really well with some other recent reads/views, including the HBO series The Pacific and [b:Southwest Passage: The Yanks in the Pacific|16115781|Southwest Passage The Yanks in the Pacific|John Lardner|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1363078793s/16115781.jpg|21933258]. Man, service in Australia sounds bleak, even when not actively fighting! (The humor helped.) ( )

Entertaining look at life in the us army serving in Australia during 1942. It is a bottom up view, which makes it more valuable to me as it was a snapshot at the time. It also only covers training and life in camp, none of the horrors of combat that some of these men later experienced. Worthwhile reading. ( )

C/O POSTMASTER, by Corporal Thomas R. St. George.

St. George's book, a collection of columns he originally published in the San Francisco Chronicle while serving with the US Army in Australia in 1942, was a bestseller during the war years, but it is all but forgotten now. I only learned of it while reading another book, A THOUSAND LETTERS HOME. In that book, another soldier, Aarol "Bud" Irish, wrote home from camp about reading "c/o Postmaster," and enjoying its humor and dead-on accuracy in depicting enlisted army life. And Irish was right. St. George did get it right, and managed to combine the humor and charm of two other popular writers of the time - Bill Mauldin and James Thurber. Mauldin because of the deadpan dogface humor and Thurber because of the simple line-drawing cartoons peppered throughout the narrative.

I can see why C/O POSTMASTER was so successful during those dark days of the war, because it provided people with an opportunity to laugh when there wasn't much to laugh about. The humor is indeed charming and the anecdotes are true to army life. Sadly, however, the charm of the now-dated humor wears rather thin after a while to today's reader. It certainly did for me. But it's a quick read that many scholars and enthusiasts of military history will probably find at least mildly interesting. ( )

athis book reveals everything about our army in Australia...