[In "And No Birds Sang" Mowat has written about his experiences as a soldier in World War II] in a departure from his usual subject matter, natural history, which he covered in such fine books as "Never Cry Wolf" and "A Whale for the Killing."

His purpose in doing so, he informs us, is to put down the lie that it is worthwhile to die for one's country. The discovery he made, in the shell-pitted hills and valleys of Italy nearly 40 years ago, is that there are no good wars. One resists the urge to tell him: You are not alone. It would take a writer of considerably more power than Mr. Mowat can summon to bring any freshness of feeling to this worn theme. Most of us know by now that in war men are killed unfairly. But some of us might still argue that there were worthwhile reasons for fighting World War II, and that the strategic reasons for the invasion of Italy were sound.

But Mr. Mowat is not concerned with the complexity of war. Beyond "getting Jerry" he has no interest in the purpose of the battles he fought in, or in the men outside his platoon. Indeed, he does not mention his divisional commander, the young and inexperienced Guy Simonds. Even the sketches of his fellow soldiers are perfunctory. The author's one theme—and who can blame him?—is "WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME?" And yet the soldier's single aim, survival, as Randall Jarrell once wrote, "is nonsense to the practice of the centuries." The result is a book in which the action is oversimplified, as in a cartoon strip, with the dialogue seeming to come out of the soldiers' mouths in balloons.

Even so, Mr. Mowat is worth reading, if for no other reason than that there are too few war memoirs from the subaltern level, and I had a fine time comparing his account with those of his commanders. Generals, in their memoirs, with their lofty strategic outlook and their Monday-morning quarterbacking, tend to sanitize war. They provide the overview, while Mr. Mowat gives us what might be called the underview. (pp. 12-13)