BROTHERS IN ARMS

A historical account of pairs of brothers who fought and died in World War II and were buried together overseas.

For much of early American history, the interment of soldiers was a private, family affair, but given the extraordinary number of casualties produced by the Civil War, national cemeteries became necessary, observes debut author and historian Callahan. The solemn tradition of leaving no soldier behind, alive or dead, includes a commitment to burying each and every fallen soldier, wherever found. In many instances, this entailed doing so on foreign land, very far from the places of the soldiers’ birth. The author provides a meticulously researched overview into this historical phenomenon, focusing specifically on the side-by-side burials of sibling soldiers of the Second World War. In total, he provides more than 70 brief accounts of these pairs along with descriptions and beautifully shot photos of cemeteries in Normandy, Belgium, Luxembourg, and North Africa, among other locations. Callahan’s research brought him into contact with members of a number of different families, and the book is festooned with images of these interview subjects. The author was clearly motivated by more than mere scholarly curiosity, and he’s obviously moved by the sacrifices of the soldiers and the families that lost them. Indeed, the book’s inspiration came roughly 10 years ago, after he saw the gravesite of two American siblings in Italy and wondered: “Who were these brothers? Where did they come from? How did they die? Who did they leave behind?”

The author discovered many stories with considerable dramatic power, and he ably conveys them in these pages. At one point, for instance, he tells the tale of the Niland brothers from New York, whose plight inspired the 1998 film Saving Private Ryan; one could easily argue that the real-life story is more fascinating than its cinematic homage. At the core of Callahan’s study is the theme of sacrifice: The soldiers gave up their lives, often when they were only teenagers, and whole families were devastated by the profound losses. Nevertheless, the young men’s sacrifices are often proudly embraced in a way that is incredibly moving, as when a chaplain, in a letter to a grieving mother, tells of an exchange he once overheard: A woman told an ex-soldier, “It’s a shame you lost your leg,” and he replied, “Ma’am...I didn’t lose it, I gave it.” However, some of the vignettes in this book are so brief that one may wonder why they were included at all. Also, as the author candidly concedes, the scope of the study is exceedingly narrow and doesn’t describe the sacrifices of female or African American soldiers or of any servicemen buried in the United States. Despite this, Callahan manages to capture a little-studied sliver of the Second World War—not an easy task to accomplish given the massive body of historical scholarship already available—and lucidly offers readers a look at the human costs of the conflict.

An original and often affecting perspective on one of the major wars of the 20th century.