I don't know that ["Battle Cry"] does anything to advance American literature, but it makes the Marines understandable.

The first few hundred pages, to my mind the best part of the book, are perhaps the most explicit survey of the training of soldiers that I have ever read, anywhere.

"Battle Cry" takes a cross-section of young Americans, some good, one or two villainous or stupid, and tells how they are molded into a critical section of a fighting machine…. The men of whom Mr. Uris writes comprise the communications section. Some of the characterizations are excellent….

It is unfortunate that "Battle Cry" should fall into the school of latrine fiction. The shocking words are true enough, but they intrude into the thought and flow of imagination and block the reader's comprehension of the story….

However, Mr. Uris has recorded some magnificent battle scenes. He tells what really happens to men when they are hit, and what their thoughts are….

Occasionally Mr. Uris is trapped by clichés; occasionally he lapses into the sentimental, but in this book are passages of great power. It is a book more honest, I believe, than "The Naked and the Dead." He knows his characters. There are no phoney generals, in the literary sense. He knows them all.