Rice alumnus translates prisoner-of-war experience into poetry

Rice alumnus translates prisoner-of-war experience into poetry

BY CHRISTOPHER
DOW
Special to the Rice News

The great wounded
bird, trailing smoke, skims the surface of the Mediterranean,
then plunges into the water. The seven crew members who
make it out alive of the doomed World War II bomber are
captured by Italians and taken to a monastery that has been
converted to a prisoner-of-war camp.

David Westheimer ’37 has dealt with his experiences as a bomber crew
member and prisoner of war more than once, notably in “Sitting
It Out: A World War II POW Memoir.” And anyone familiar
with his novel “Von Ryan’s Express” (or the
movie version starring Frank Sinatra) will recognize source
material for that story described in the pages of Westheimer’s
latest book, “The Great Wounded Bird” (Texas Review
Press, 2000). Here, though, Westheimer tackles the subject
in poetry, and the results earned the 2000 Texas Review
Poetry Prize.

In free verse
and simple, expository language that relies strongly on
imagery and tone, “The Great Wounded Bird” gives
a chronological account of Westheimer’s experiences
from his departure from the United States, through his time
as a flier and POW, to liberation and the present time.
The crash scene, depicted in the title poem, is not the
beginning of “The Great Wounded Bird.” Before
that, Westheimer describes his almost uninvolved participation
in a war that seems distant and the ways he and his fellow
fliers cope with daily life in a foreign land. The poems
in this section are not without the irony that only historical
perspective can provide: He mentions, for example, vacationing
in Beirut, “the Paris of the Mediterranean.”

Suddenly, however,
the war is no longer remote as it reaches up and plucks
his plane from the sky, plunging him into the gritty hardships
of internment. He is quartered his first winter in an Italian
monastery converted to a prison, where the simple act of
bathing beneath an unheated tap is a frigid ordeal and where
pleasant dreams of home are as abhorrent as nightmares because
waking is a return to the harsh reality of prison life.
After a time, he and his fellow prisoners are transferred
to a German prisoner-of-war camp, and he takes part in forced
marches and boxcar rides across frozen landscapes.

Nor is Westheimer
as personally remote from the world he once flew over. Prior
to the crash, he speaks of soaring over cities and whole
countries as if they were empty of meaning, but afterward,
he talks almost exclusively about people. In the prison,
the barriers of color, creed and nationality break down,
and he meets fellow prisoners with whom he remains friends
for life. And there are welcome interludes where he sneaks
away from the camp to mingle with local German peasants
and clergy and trade POW soap, tea and cigarettes for eggs,
potatoes and jam.

And then comes
liberation and with it some of the book’s more poignant
moments as Westheimer finds aid among the soldiers who set
the prisoners free. But for Westheimer, the act of liberation
is just another moment in a continuum, and through the years,
he reconnects with many of his compatriots, most of whom
are now gone except in memory.

And here is
the real crux of “The Great Wounded Bird”: While
the poems do contain vivid images of Westheimer’s wartime
experiences, this is not so much the poetry of war or incarceration
as it is the poetry of remembrance. The first poem is itself
a statement on age, memory and the realities of a life lived.
And throughout the collection, there are moments where time
fades into later years as Westheimer reunites with fellow
POWs and even former guards. But he is doing something more
here than depicting the ways the past and present juxtapose
and overlap, especially when he recalls surprise phone calls
from fellow prisoners and accidentally seeing himself on
television in an archival photo of World War II POWs. He
is pointing out that, because the world continually revives
the past, memory does not simply reside in the mind of an
individual but is a living force that links us to the external
world.

Westheimer retired
from the Air Force as lieutenant colonel and received the
Distinguished Flying Cross and Air Medal. He is the author
of 15 novels and one nonfiction book, including “Von
Ryan’s Return,” “The Olmec Head,” “Rider
on the Wind” and “My Sweet Charlie,” which
was made into a movie in 1970.

—Christopher
Dow is editor of the Sallyport.