A Combat Artist in World War II

Book excerpt: A WWII combat artist shares his recollections—and his arresting artwork—from the frontlines of the Italian campaign in this military memoir. Many artists have fought in wars and later recorded heroic scenes of great battles. Yet few artists have created their work on the frontlines as they fought alongside their comrades. Edward Reep, as an official combat artist in World War II, painted and sketched while the battles of the Italian campaign raged around him. At Monte Cassino, the earth trembled as he attempted to paint the historic bombing of that magnificent abbey. Later, racing into Milan with armed partisans on the fenders of his Jeep, he saw the bodies of Mussolini and his beautiful mistress cut down from the gas station where they had been hanged by their heels. That same day he witnessed the spectacle of a large German army force holed up in a high-rise office tower, waiting for the chance to surrender to the proper American brass for fear of falling into the hands of the vengeful partisans. Reep’s recollections of such desperate days are captured in Combat Artist, both in the text and in the many painfully vivid paintings and drawings that accompany it. Reep’s battlefield drawings show us, with unrelenting honesty, the horrors and griefs?and the bitter comedy?of battle.