Hemingway, Hunter of Men: Hemingway Goes on a Date

Chapter 7

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Ernest Hemingway went on to cover the Allied invasion of Europe for Colliers magazine. There, he proceeded to break the rules. Most U.S. Army officers had little combat experience and few spoke French. Hemingway, who did and could, began to lead units of the French Resistance on reconnaissance missions to help the Americans.

He later claimed to have killed 122 German soldiers in combat and one SS man who had been taken prisoner. Hemingway historians say this was probably exaggeration, but Hemingway had surely engaged German troops in combat. The very nature of the missions—to determine the strength and position of enemy forces—required that you provoke brief firefights.

Other correspondents, who understood the danger posed by one of their own in a combat role, saw that Hemingway was brought up on charges, and only the outright perjury of a U.S. Army general saved him from banishment.

6 July 1943: Late afternoon, Aboard Pilar

As far as anyone could tell, there had not been a U-boat in Cuban waters since a Cuban Navy patrol boat sunk one two months ago off Varadero. Hemingway was realistic: The chances of him finding an enemy boat, let alone sinking one, was diminishing. Doors close and doors open, he thought. Bonkowski couldn’t walk. London was in survival mode, and London wanted its pound of flesh. So be it. God save the King. And fuck Edgar Hoover.

Hemingway decided to come clean with the rest of the crew about the true nature of the mission. The truth was that as a writer he made a lousy spy. A natural-born journalist is temperamentally disinclined to keep secrets when there is the slightest excuse not to.

“I’m going to complete the mission myself,” Hemingway said. “Then we’re going to hightail it south. But not tonight. Maybe tomorrow. Tonight I’m going to put on my yacht club duds. I’m going to meet with our Navy connection, then I’m going to reconnoiter the battlefield. Be back late. The rest of you stay on the boat. Anybody got anything to say one way or the other?”