The postscript to Ferrell earning his PhD is less unwieldy. The path to initial professorship is hardly disputable. Bemis’s ties to F. Lee Benns (friends at Clark University) smoothed the way to IU’s History Department along with Ferrell’s characteristics: male, white, protestant (Methodist), Ivy League–trained, and well-connected. The newly published Yale thesis-to-book Peace in Their Time no doubt provided a boost, though it did not prove advantageous a year earlier in a competition for a Michigan State College professorship. Gaining the tenure-track post at IU was just the beginning of Ferrell’s path to prominence. There is more to contemplate before casting judgments on him as an exemplar of postmodernist angst. Ferrell’s war story is another vignette worth considering.
Ferrell at War?
When you read about rear echelon troops, just imagine that I am behind them. I’ve never seen a German plane in action and never heard a bomb of any kind.
—Robert Ferrell
(Letter to Mom and Dad, December 25, 1944)
There are multiple narratives that would put Ferrell, in the end, at Yale and by his second year under the guidance of one of the nation’s most highly respected American foreign relations historians. It was Bemis who knew Benns at Indiana University and others so useful to Ferrell’s early career trajectory. Contingency has its place: What if the faculty member had been someone else? Or if there had been no meeting with William Castle, a U.S. State Department connection to former Secretary of State Kellogg or no Castle diary, events critical to the success of RHF’s prize winning first book published by Yale in 1952. Just as with the narrative of Ferrell’s rise through Yale to prominent historian, his Second World War participation sheds light on the multiple perspectives on that war, how soldiers experienced it, its meaning, its purposes, its chroniclers, its subject matter, from the top-down, middle out, and Ferrell up, and even more, as written by unrecognized historians. For young Bob, it began with enlistment, still an option before the draft-only Army closed that door to others.58 Soldier Ferrell bemoaned that enlistees such as himself were shut out of officer candidate school (OCS) competition simply by bad luck of not finishing college, a seemingly minimalist requirement. Enlistment itself evaporated as an option for others precluding their noncombat choices. Even those “lucky enough” to obtain a coveted OCS spot had few options outside combat. Ferrell, later realizing this, stopped pushing to be an officer.
Certainly, postmodernism would have no reason to deny soldier Ferrell as an appropriate historical focus, given the historical gap his case is worthy of filling, even as it lacks the intrigue of Rick Blaine in Casablanca. Although a WASP, his story is not top-down and even more it is not the mainstream battle narrative. Private Ferrell wrote his itinerary in a little red book to organize the chronology of this civilian-turned-soldier’s early war sojourn to Cairo. Egypt was the first lengthy posting, this at Headquarters, 9th Air Force Service Command (AFSC), by the end of 1942.59 But before arriving and after all the intermediate steps, from beginning of service at Patterson Field to assignment with the 9th AFSC in early September, and after the usual marching, inculcation of military bearing, rifle range practice, and so forth, recruit Ferrell joined a few others at a six-week air “flight operations” clerk school.60 By October, he was on his way to embarkment from Staten Island’s docks aboard the USS West Point, Compartment B-13.61 And this, principally, is where the unorthodox military adventure began for Ferrell.
Between July 13, 1942, and early September 1945, the future highly regarded diplomatic historian went to war, but one could hardly tell this by the letters he sent home to his parents.62 The Army Air Force private made the point in one missive later in the war to his folks: “When you read about rear echelon troops, just imagine that I am behind them. I’ve never seen a German plane in action and never heard a bomb of any kind. I go to work each morning just like Dad goes to the bank.” Perhaps to put a finer point on it, Ferrell added, “life here is easy.” Beyond easy, soldier Ferrell’s military service escaped that of routine simplicity.63 The peripatetic private described military adventures beyond what most vacation-minded Americans could fathom. War or not, Ferrell had fun.64
Young Bob’s Air Detachment Group, part of the 9th Air Force Service Command, sailed first to Rio de Janeiro for a brief stopover, then encountered exotic cultural intrigue in India at Bombay and by train to the interior at Camp Deolali. Partiality to American ways was never far from his mind during a ten-day stay in India. A local newspaper captured this sentiment: “Bob Ferrell Describes India as Weird and Mysterious.”65 South Asia was no American Midwest. The newspaper reinforced the point with Ferrell as mouthpiece: the “natives are dressed in turbans and sheets for trousers and go barefooted the year round. Food is very scarce.” Alarming too were Indian lifestyles, natives who had to live in huts on pennies a day and this to feed a family of about eight. Those who could not make it looked for money to borrow, which led to more trouble. After a few weeks of sightseeing, the news account stated that Pvt. Ferrell “was glad to get out.” By December, his group shipped over to Egypt through the Suez Canal.66
Once settled in Cairo (see Figure 1.1), in letters penned to family, soldier Bob shared ancient attractions throughout Egypt—the pyramids of course—and points of interest all along the Nile, even into neighboring Sudan at Wadi Halfa. As early as January 1943, Private Ferrell regaled his mom and dad with stories of the famed pharaoh tombs, and only a few months later, sent plenty of pictures with descriptions of “grand trips” cycling around them.67 Foreshadowing the penchant for detail that would mark his future writings, the letters would often describe with exactitude the pictures enclosed. “The step pyramid at Sakhara,” for example, fascinated the tourist soldier.
Figure 1.1 Reflecting on his past, after retiring from Indiana University, Ferrell explained that cycling trips to the pyramids in Egypt during the Second World War turned his attention to history. Source: Courtesy of Carolyn Ferrell Burgess.
This is the oldest of the pyramids and is falling apart, due to the inferior stone used in building it. The rocks here are merely [slags], approximately 5 inches thick. All the pyramids had a certain number of mortuary temples, and nobles’ tombs surrounding them; many of these have been excavated. When last at Sakhara, they were still digging. Outside the picture to the right, are a couple of large shafts, perhaps 100 feet deep, in which the priest put the mummies from possibly this pyramid, when grave robbers began to become bothersome.68
Ferrell observed the social customs of local women in the same letter. Women’s dress and behaviors held an allure to this bachelor. He noticed that “[t]he Mohammedan women” wore their hair so as not to draw attention from “outsiders,” but big “nose pieces” contradicted the message. With veils and hoods, and “big baggy black dress, which comes down to the ankles,” the women shared a certain anonymity. In comparison, the peasant girls “do not bother with the veil,” only the black dresses, yet “are not troubled by them” in the summer heat. All are capable of “carrying things on their heads.” The “young girls marry at about 15 or 16.” In letters sent during May 1943, Ferrell expanded on various topics from Arabic funerals to habits of cleanliness. Back at the Army base, left with little to occupy himself, Ferrell was reading, even “studying” more, and no doubt expanding his knowledge of and interest in world history.
Beyond Cairo, the future historian found himself exploring much of what there was to see in historic Egypt. Luxor was a favorite spot, one he would revisit years later as a visiting scholar at the American University in Cairo.69 As a soldier, traveling with Army buddies Franklin and Bennett, Bob explored the temples and kings’ tombs and returned with souvenirs. Though only three days there, they “had a good time.” One can certainly see the budding historian