Ernest HEMINGWAY,
At 18, Hemingway attempted to enlist in the Army but was rejected due to poor vision, so he volunteered at the Red Cross when he learned they were seeking volunteers as ambulance drivers. He signed up in December 1917, quit his job at the Kansas City Star in April 1918 and was sailing for Europe by May. In Paris, Hemingway received orders to travel to Milan, Italy. His baptism into the horrors of war was immediate. On the very day he arrived, a munitions factory exploded and his first duty was to carry mutilated bodies and body parts to a makeshift morgue. Two days later he was assigned to an ambulance unit, Section 4, at Schio, some fifteen miles north of Vicenza. As this sector was dead quiet, with little ambulancing to keep him busy, Hemingway soon volunteered to run a front-line, rolling canteen for the Red Cross, distributing comfort kits & other items to the soldiers. However, as no canteen vehicle was immediately available, Hemingway scrounged a supply of cigarettes, chocolate & postcards and took off for the front lines on a bicycle on July 8, despite reports of the enemy being just across the river. Well after dark, wishing to get even closer to some real action, he crawled out to a forward listening post with his chocolate and cigarettes just in time to be badly hit by an incoming five-gallon tin canister, which riddled his legs and torso with over two-hundred slivered shards of steel rod and flatmetal, while killing the soldier next to him, and blowing the legs off another. Despite his injuries, Hemingway hoisted a wounded soldier onto his shoulder and hobbled off toward the rear, getting only about fifty yards before his knee was shattered by machine-gun fire. Somehow, still carrying the wounded soldier, he made it another hundred yards or so before collapsing. Italian stretcher-bearers carried him to a smistamento (Italian version of a post de secours), from where he was ferried by ambulance to a field hospital near Treviso. He arrived at Red Cross base hospital in Milan on July 17, where he remained recuperating until being shipped home in January, 1919. For his actions on July 8, Hemingway was awarded the Italian Silver Medal for Valor with the official Italian citation reading: "Gravely wounded by numerous pieces of shrapnel from an enemy shell, with an admirable spirit of brotherhood, before taking care of himself, he rendered generous assistance to the Italian soldiers more seriously wounded by the same explosion and did not allow himself to be carried elsewhere until after they had been evacuated." Hemingway's experiences in Italy, his wounding and his subsequent recovery at a hospital in Milan, his disappointed love for his nurse Agnes von Kurowsky, eventually found artistic expression in his novel A Farewell To Arms, one of the great novels to come out of the war.
Bibliography:
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[Hemingway], Haines, Randy , WRESTLING ERNEST HEMINGWAY. Burbank: 1993, 1st edition, Warner Brothers. VG+ in G+ slipcase Vhs video with Richard harris $10.00
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Hemingway, Ernest , A FAREWELL TO ARMS. NY: 1954, 3rd Bantam printing, Bantam. G Vintage pb; interesting cover art; collectible $10.00
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Hemingway, Ernest , A FAREWELL TO ARMS. London: 1962, Penguin. G+ Mass pb; collectible $10.00
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Hemingway, Ernest, ACROSS THE RIVER AND INTO THE TREES. NY: 1930, dell. G+ Vintage pb $20.00
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Hemingway, Ernest , ACROSS THE RIVER AND INTO THE TREES. NY: 1950, 1st edition, Ch. Scribner's. VG-(light wear) in G+(with tears and chips)dj Black boards $60.00
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Hemingway, Ernest , DEATH IN THE AFTERNOON. NY: 1932, Later reprint, PF Collier. VG-(mild spots to bottom edge) Blue embosseed boards $22.50
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Hemingway, Ernest , FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS. NY: 1951, 1st Bantam edition, Bantam. G Vintage pb; interesting cover art; collectible $20.00
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Hemingway, Ernest , GREEN HILLS OF AFRICA. NY: 1956, Perma Books. VG- Vintage pb $20.00
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Hemingway, Ernest , SET (in six uniform volumes). NY: 1932, Collier. VG(may have signatures to flyleaves) Blue embossed boards; attractive set in 6 uniform volumes $100.00
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Hemingway, Ernest , SET (in 6 volumes). NY: 1938, Collier. VG+ Blue embossed boards $100.00
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Hemingway, Ernest , THE SUN ALSO RISES. NY: 1949, 3rd Bantam printing, Bantam. VG-(light red stains on back, creases near spine) Vintage paperback; collectible. $20.00
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Hemingway, Ernest , THE SUN ALSO RISES. NY: 1949, 2nd printing, Bantam. G(taped from without, wear) Vintage pb $15.00
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Hemingway, Ernest , THE SHORT STORIES. NY: 1962(??), Scribner's. VG-(2 bumped corners, foxing to endpapers) in G dj Brown boards $20.00
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Hemingway, Ernest , THE NICK ADAMS STORIES. NY: 1972, 4th printing, Scribner's. VG-(very light discoloration to board extremities, owner signature to endpaper) in G+ dj Blue boards $22.50
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Hemingway, Ernest , THE GARDEN OF EDEN. NY: 1986, 1st edition, Scribner's. VG in VG-(some minor creasing)dj Brown and white boards $35.00
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Hemingway, Ernest , TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT. NY: 1950, 12th printing, Perma Books. G-(wrapper loose, creases) Vintage pb; interesting cover art; creases $7.50
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