Able on the Way!

About the Book

Korea. The Forgotten War?

See for yourself: Go to your local chain bookstore and look at the “Military History” section. Squeezed in between hundreds of books on World War II, and an almost equal number on the Vietnam War, you’ll find a partial shelf of books on the Korean War.

It’s no different for fiction, though not as easy to make the comparison. There is a seemingly endless stream of novels about the Second World War, and a burgeoning list about the war in Vietnam. Novels of the Korean conflict, however, are few and far between. Why? It can’t be because there was less action, less tragedy, less drama than in other conflicts.

It can be argued that the Korean War ended in stalemate, and therefore is not a popular subject for readers or writers. But popular response to the Vietnam War was much more negative — and yet much more productive of both non-fiction works and novels.

Is then Korea truly the Forgotten War? Not completely. For one, Able on the Way! is a new entry in the slim list of novels that deal with the first major armed clash between East and West, communism and democracy.

This book brings to the reader the sights and sounds of the conflict that heated up the Cold War, bringing casualty lists once more to homes across America and reminding us of the cost of freedom in a dangerous world.

Students of military history and tactics know that infantry is the Queen of Battles, since only infantrymen can take or hold ground. Not so well-known to the general public is the other half of the adage: artillery is the King of the battlefield, because artillery provides the fire support that allows infantry to take or hold ground.

The Second World War showed that a field army’s ability to bring artillery fire to bear quickly — to mass fire — is a solid indicator of that army’s ability to achieve its objectives.
The three keys to artillery success are appropriate weapons, a system for controlling their fire, and personnel to use the system and the materiel to accomplish a given mission. Able on the Way! lets the reader experience all three of these dimensions, as well as the life and labors of the infantrymen supported by the firepower of the artillery.

It is relatively easy to personify some weapons of war, like ships and planes: the latter sometimes, the former almost always, are given names, official or not, by which they are known to their crews and others. The weapons of ground warfare usually lack this attribute.

In Able on the Way! one artillery piece, a 105 millimeter howitzer, has a nickname, earned by its temperamental behavior, that suggests an almost human personality; the Mule indeed becomes a character in the novel in its own right.

Although from time to time higher ranking generals and political officals are mentioned, Able on the Way! focuses on the life of the combat soldier, from infantry riflemen and non-commissioned officers to platoon leaders, company, battalion and regimental commanders; from field artillery cannoneers and non-coms to their lieutenants, captains, majors and lieutenant colonels.

Able on the Way! is the story of U. S. Army field artillerymen and the infantrymen they support in combat. It tells about the jolting transition from garrison duty in Japan as part of the Army of Occupation to combat against fanatic North Korean Communist forces, and later the CCF — Chinese Communist Forces — who intervene to save their North Korean allies from complete destruction. Subtropical summer heat with infirmities like dysentery and malaria is followed by subarctic cold that brings frostbite and pneumonia.

Set against the conflict of two world-wide political and economic systems in armed struggle against each other, Able on the Way! tells of conflict on many levels: between commanders and the men they send to fight and die, between noncommissioned of

About the Author

David E. Bergesen was born on the West Coast, where his father was serving on a US Navy submarine. After enlisting in the Regular Army, Bergesen graduated from OCS and jump school, and served as an artillery officer in Korea, 1950-51. Educated in the east, including Dartmouth and William and Mary, he has lived and worked extensively in Latin America. Author of a previous novel of the Korean War, Able on the Way!, he has also written a mystery, Murder Crosses the Equator. He lives in Tucson with his wife Vicki, a graphic designer. They have two married sons.