Duffy’s War: Fr. Francis Duffy, Wild Bill Donovan, and the Irish

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Reviewed in Parameters, U.S. Army War College Quarterly, Autumn '07

Duffy’s War: Fr. Francis Duffy, Wild Bill Donovan, and the Irish Fighting 69th in World War I. By Stephen L. Harris. Dulles, Va.: Potomac Books, 2006. 456 pages. $29.95. Reviewed by Dr. Douglas V. Johnson II (LTC, USA Ret.), Research Professor, Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College.

If you are an Irish Catholic you will love this book. If you are just Irish you will enjoy it immensely. If you are merely a World War I historian you will find it valuable. If you are a social historian you will find it useful. If you are a student of the US Army you should read it regardless of your ethnicity, religious persuasion, or professional orientation. We do not raise ethnic regiments in the US Army anymore, although by virtue of geographic distribution Army National Guard units do possess a local orientation. The issues that are associated with the process of ethic regiments are detailed in the book’s opening chapters. Irish-English tensions afflicted the “Fighting 69th” from the beginning, but were handled by a variety of means including the timely words of the unit’s remarkable Chaplain Father Francis Duffy.

This is the author’s third book in a series that began with a solid work of social-military history, Duty, Honor, Privilege: New York’s Silk Stocking Regiment and the Breaking of the Hindenburg Line. Harris’ series is largely focused on New York City’s World War I regiments, including his second work, Harlem’s Hell Fighters: The African-American 369th Infantry in World War I.

As in all such histories, the tragedy of American unpreparedness for World War I comes through as part of the narrative. Soldiers’ experiences with inadequate equipment and ineffective training are constant reminders in the grim saga of that war. The regiment’s first experience with gas weapons was tragic, but avoidable, unlike its first experience with heavy shelling. In both cases the Irish suffer serious casualties in what was supposed to have been a “quiet sector.” The descriptions of tactical action and attempts to conform to the realities of combat will continue to irritate the professional soldier reading this book. Critics of every war complain that the Army always prepares to fight the “last war” and is slow to adapt to realities on the present conflict. In the case of Operation Desert Storm, the American Army was happily confronted with an army with its head, and a good deal more, in the sand. Even though not everything went as planned or hoped, doctrine and training worked with the stupidity of the enemy high-command to produce a 100-hour war. In America’s current conflict that adaptation evolved more slowly than most would have liked. Nevertheless, the WWI experience, like many episodes of dissatisfaction, stems from both military and political sources, and, like him or not, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was correct in his assessment, “You go to war with the military that you have.” Harris wastes little time with the what ought to have beens and draws the reader ever deeper

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into reality. In doing that, the reader cannot miss the American soldier’s willingness to endure the awful conditions Harris describes in detail.

The initial chapters of Duffy’s War focus on Father Duffy, but that focus gradually shifts to Bill Donovan whose personality dominates the combat action chapters which constitute almost half of the book. As Harris describes it, Donovan is Duffy’s man to lead the 165th Regiment and he, Duffy, takes every opportunity to make that desire a reality. The latter chapters are a graphic portrayal of the brutality of combat in war. The descriptive material, taken from participants’ letters and memoirs, seem to describe every soldier’s death or wounding in bloody detail—it may be a bit too much for some readers. Bloody as it may be, the detailed accounting reflects the value of the personal accounts that Harris has so well examined and integrated into a stimulating and coherent narrative. It is indeed an art to take a collection of letters and effectively integrate them into a narrative resembling ground-truth and then pull the whole together to find its place in the grand significance of things. While one might quibble with some of the grand, this reviewer has nothing but admiration for the descriptions of ground-truth.

One is not certain whether to credit Harris or the publisher for the good sense to incorporate the excellent maps from the United States Army in the World War, 1917-1919 series. The simple clarity and tactical relevance of these maps significantly improve the reading experience. The publishers have incorporated a number of photographs appropriately in the narrative, rather than follow the somewhat irritating practice of lumping all photos together. The effect of these decisions is that readers are treated to a more complete texture as they progress through the book. As mentioned in the opening of the review, how urgently you read this book depends on who you are, but no matter what the answer to that question may be, it will be worth your time.