As They Were

AS THEY WERE By LT. COL. A. PETER DEWEY

With the war ended, too many people have already forgotten the dark and uncertain days France knew in 1939-40. But Lieutenant-Colonel Dewey did not forget. He was not the sort of American who could live through such a period and fail to remember. In the simplicity of his book, he has shaped the terror and dissolution of a great people and country. Other writers have told of the corruption in the highest levels of French politics and society; other writers have spoken of the courage that far outweighed the treachery. But none has been able to catch the fevered hopelessness, the panic of those two years. As a Paris correspondent, Dewey was in a position to observe and analyze, and gasp in amazement, at the events which led to the brutal transformation of a great power into a defeated crushed nation. But he has wisely stayed away from the cut-and-dried analyses of political maneuvers and results. He has concentrated upon these hectic days as they affected the individual. His interest was on a human level—the small personal tragedies as well as the great, the death of a child along a refugee-clogged road as well as the decimation of a regiment.

AS THEY WERE is not only the story of the early days of this late war as it has never been told before; it is also the story of a sensitive, wise young man who managed to combine an almost delicate culture and a classic intellect with practical ability. Peter Dewey is now dead—killed in action, while serving as a Lieutenant-Colonel in the OSS. He died as courageously as he lived, his physical daring surpassed only by his moral courage. Of his book, Arthur Krock has said: “This is one of the most absorbing accounts of what happened in France in 1939 and 1940 that I have seen—deftly woven into the story of a gallant personal experience are the tragic elements of the debacle.”