Guard of Honor by James Gould Cozzens
"Guard of Honor" is a novel by James Gould Cozzens, set primarily at a U.S. Air Force base in Ocanara, Florida, during the aftermath of World War II. The story revolves around Major General "Bus" Beal, a decorated war hero, and his reliance on Colonel Norman Ross, the Air Inspector, who navigates the complexities of military bureaucracy and racial tensions. The narrative begins with a minor incident involving Lieutenant Willis, a Black pilot, which escalates into a larger conflict reflecting the racial dynamics of the time, particularly the existence of segregated facilities for Black officers.
The plot unfolds over a few critical days marked by both operational challenges at the base and personal struggles among the characters. As the situation intensifies, Colonel Ross emerges as a pivotal figure attempting to maintain order amidst the chaos, while General Beal grapples with his own responsibilities and emotional burdens. The climax of the narrative involves a tragic accident during a birthday celebration for General Beal, further complicating the already strained atmosphere at Ocanara.
Cozzens skillfully weaves themes of power, morality, and the impact of war on human relationships into the narrative. The novel explores how individuals confront and adapt to their circumstances, emphasizing that even amidst turmoil, one must strive to uphold honorable ideals. Through its intricate character interactions and societal critiques, "Guard of Honor" offers a thought-provoking examination of military life and the racial issues prevalent in the post-war United States.
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Guard of Honor by James Gould Cozzens
First published: 1948
Type of work: Novel
Type of plot: Psychological realism
Time of plot: Three days during World War II
Locale: Florida
Principal characters
Major General Ira N. “Bus” Beal , the commanding general of the Ocanara BaseSal Beal , his wifeColonel Norman Ross , the Air Inspector on General Beal’s staffCora Ross , his wifeCaptain Nathaniel Hicks , an officer in Special Projects and an editor in civilian lifeSecond Lieutenant Amanda Turck , a member of the Women’s Army Corps (WAC)Lieutenant Colonel Benny Carricker , General Beal’s copilotBrigadier General Nichols , the assistant to the commanding general of the Air ForceLieutenant Edsell , a writer assigned to Special ProjectsLieutenant Lippa , a member of WAC who is in love with EdsellLieutenant Willis , a black pilotMr. Willis , his father
The Story:
The huge and sprawling U.S. Air Force base at Ocanara, Florida, is almost a world in itself. At its head is Major General “Bus” Beal, who was a hero in the Pacific theater in the early days of the war and is still at the age of forty-one an energetic and skillful flyer. To keep the operation of the base running smoothly, the general relies heavily on his Air Inspector, Colonel Norman Ross, who brings to his military duties the same resourcefulness that characterized his career as a judge in peacetime; Judge Ross needs all of his acumen to do the job.
Landing his AT-7 one night at the Ocanara airstrip, the general comes close to colliding with a B-17 piloted by Lieutenant Willis, one of the black fliers recently assigned to Ocanara, who violated the right of way. Lieutenant Colonel Benny Carricker, General Beal’s copilot, strikes Lieutenant Willis, who has to be hospitalized, whereupon General Beal confines Carricker to his quarters. The incident, while small, triggers a series of problems that, in the next two days, threaten to destroy the normal operations of the base. Several of the black fliers, incensed by what happened to Lieutenant Willis and further outraged because a separate service club has been set up for them, attempt to enter the white officers’ recreation building, an action that comes close to starting a riot.
To complicate the situation, tension develops between the Air Force base and some leading citizens of the town. Colonel Ross is the only member of General Beal’s staff who recognizes the hazards of the situation. For the others—in particular Colonel Mowbray and his assistant, Chief Warrant Officer Botwinick—the difficulties seem routine. Even General Beal is of little aid to Colonel Ross, for he is brooding unhappily over the arrest of Carricker and over the recent suicide of an old friend.
Other forces are compounding the difficulties among the members of the Air Force base. For Lieutenant Edsell, Willis’s hospitalization is the springboard for agitation, and he helps arrange a visit from Lieutenant Willis’s father to the base hospital. Only a few of the base personnel understand the difficulties Colonel Ross faces and the skill with which he operates. Those who do, such as Captain Nathaniel Hicks, are too concerned with their own problems to be of much assistance.
On the day Mr. Willis is to visit his son, the Ocanara base is host to another unexpected visitor, Brigadier General Nichols, the personal representative of the commanding general of the Air Force. To the embarrassment of all concerned, General Nichols’s purpose in coming to Ocanara is to award Lieutenant Willis a medal for bravery.
Whatever Colonel Ross may have dreaded from the visit, he is relieved to find General Nichols a not-unsympathetic man, for the general has trained himself to be stoic and tolerant. He understands the situation at a glance and, at the awarding of the medal at the hospital, conducts himself so that Willis himself is charmed.
On the following day, the base prepares for a celebration in honor of General Beal’s forty-first birthday. Colonel Mowbray organizes a military parade that is to include not only men and women from the Women Army Corps (WAC) marching but also planes flying in formation and parachute drops. General Nichols shares the reviewing stand with General Beal and his staff. In the nearby field, near a lake, Captain Hicks and his friend from the WAC detachment, Lieutenant Turck, are posted as observers.
The parade begins, and from their observation post, Captain Hicks and Lieutenant Turck see hundreds of parachutists begin the slow descent into a simulated conflict. Then tragedy strikes. A group of parachutists, having timed their leap badly, drop into the lake instead of hitting the field. In horror, Captain Hicks sees them struggle briefly in the water and then sink.
When news of the disaster reaches General Beal’s office, there is a moment of furious commotion. Charges and countercharges are flung without restraint. To Colonel Ross, it seems that fate has ordained nothing but problems for him and the base. General Beal finally takes command and begins directing rescue operations with precision and skill, revealing that throughout the past few days he has not been unaware of the conflicts going on.
That night, Colonel Ross accompanies General Nichols to the plane that is to return him to Washington. Reviewing the difficulties of the past three days, the Colonel sees that General Nichols is right: One can do no more than one’s best and, for the rest, trust the situation to right itself.
Bibliography
Bracher, Frederick. The Novels of James Gould Cozzens. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1959. Points out that the flashback-filled opening episode introduces the themes of possession, power delegation, racial antagonisms, and personal and psychological tangles. Identifies Cozzens’s skillful patterning of apparently random incidents and defines the novel’s underlying message that inevitable concessions to circumstance should not invalidate an individual’s moral, honorable ideals.
Bruccoli, Matthew J. James Gould Cozzens: A Life Apart. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1983. In one chapter, the author recounts Cozzens’s military career and identifies military personnel used as models for characters in Guard of Honor. Another chapter discusses the novel’s composition and contents and explains its popular and critical reception.
‗‗‗‗‗‗‗, ed. James Gould Cozzens: A Documentary Volume. Vol. 294 in Dictionary of Literary Biography. Detroit, Mich.: Gale, 2004. A compilation of information about Cozzens, including biographical data, excerpts from Cozzens’s writings, critical analyses, discussions of his critical reception, letters, notebook entries, and essays.
Dillard, R. H. W. “Guard of Honor: Providential Luck in a Hard-Luck World.” In James Gould Cozzens: New Acquist of True Experience, edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1979. Sees Guard of Honor as a novel of freedom and values though in a context of seeming enclosure, restriction, and ruin.
Kinder, John M. “The Good War’s ’Raw Chunks’: Norman Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead and James Gould Cozzens’s Guard of Honor.” Midwest Quarterly 46, no. 2 (Winter, 2005): 187-202. Kinder compares the two World War II novels, arguing that the books do not share the “sense of moral rectitude” about the war that is common to most other novels about the conflict. Instead, Kinder maintains, these novels do not romanticize the war or the military personnel who fought it, and they take exception to the conventional wisdom that Americans during wartime were united around a common goal.
Michel, Pierre. James Gould Cozzens. Boston: Twayne, 1974. Analyzes Cozzens’s conclusions in Guard of Honor that war, like life, disrupts harmonies, that heroism is limited, that reality countermands principles, and that duty requires responsible compromising, even the bending of rules. The center of the novel’s intricate narrative is an observant, contemplative consciousness.
Mooney, Harry John, Jr. James Gould Cozzens: Novelist of Intellect. Pittsburgh, Pa.: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1963. Asserts that in Guard of Honor, Cozzens uses intelligent narrative points of view, pauses to dissect motives and principles, traces causes and effects, and dramatizes the acceptable consequences of intellectual limitations.
Van Ness, Gordon. “’A Just Representation of Life and People’: The Artistic Technique of James Gould Cozzens.” In The Professions of Authorship: Essays in Honor of Matthew J. Bruccoli, edited by Richard Layman and Joel Myerson. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1996. Discusses Cozzens’s opinions and techniques of writing. Van Ness maintains that throughout his career, Cozzens “committed himself to the profession of authorship, refusing to court popular taste or to accede to the literary establishment.”