Ernest Hemingway in Milan 1918, courtesy JFK Library

Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) often employed the war theme in his novels and short stories. But the macho Hemingway was no neophyte when it came to the real thing, having witnessed his share of blood and gore in both World War I and II, the 1921-22 Greco-Turkish War and the Spanish Civil War.

Ernest Hemingway: Family War Roots

Ernest Miller Hemingway was born in Oak Park, Illinois, on July 21, 1899. Both of his grandfathers, Anson T. Hemingway and Ernest Hall, had served with the Union Army during the American Civil War.

Ernest Hall had been a corporal with Troop L, First Iowa Volunteer Cavalry, with a Confederate minie ball still embedded in one thigh as a reminder of his combat experiences. Hall, who owned a wholesale cutlery business in Chicago, never allowed the war to be mentioned in his presence.

Ernest Hemingway: Ambulance Driver in World War I

While working as a cub reporter for the Kansas City Star, the teen-aged Hemingway met Theodore Brumback who, in the summer of 1917, had enlisted in the American Field Service as an ambulance driver in France. Brumback had spent four months in Europe, returning to the States and weaving romanticized tales of the Great War that was now raging on the continent.

In April 1918, Hemingway and Brumback drew their final paychecks at the Star and headed to New York, where they signed on as volunteer ambulance drivers for the Red Cross. Following a two-week indoctrination period, the two young men were presented with their honorary second lieutenant bars and official uniforms.

Hemingway’s desire for action soon materialized in Italy, when an entire munitions factory exploded in the countryside near Milan. Hemingway was among those dispatched to the grisly scene, where most of the dead were women war workers. Hemingway later reported in a letter that the bloody scene shocked him considerably, as his only previous contact with the dead had come from hunting small animals.

On July 8, 1918, an Austrian artillery shell the size of a five-gallon tin, loaded with steel rod fragments and other junk metal, exploded in his midst at the Piave front in Italy. Then came the machine gun and rifle fire from across the river. Wounded in the right foot and kneecap, Hemingway nonetheless managed to carry an Italian soldier 100 yards to safety before losing consciousness.