The Winds of War by Herman Wouk

First published: 1971

Type of plot: Historical romance

Time of work: From 1939 to 1941, beginning shortly before Adolf Hitler’s invasion of Poland and ending with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor

Locale: Washington, D.C., England, Germany, Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union, Italy, and other major sites of World War II

Principal Characters:

• Victor (Pug) Henry, the central figure, a career naval officer and reluctant emissary of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt
• Rhoda Henry, his wife
• Warren, the Henrys’ elder son, also a naval officer
• Byron (Briny), the Henrys’ younger son who becomes a submariner
• Madeline, the Henrys’ daughter, a broadcasting assistant
• Natalie Jastrow, eventually the wife of Byron
• Pamela Tudsbury, Victor’s mistress

The Novel

The action of the novel projects the lives of the principal characters against the events leading to American entry into World War II. Victor Henry and his family are “tumbleweeds,” blown around the globe by the “winds of war.” Victor is an ambitious and frustrated naval captain who stumbles into favor with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt through a fluke prediction. As a result, Victor becomes Roosevelt’s untitled emissary to various nations and in the process meets most of the world’s leading figures: Joseph Stalin, Winston Churchill, Benito Mussolini, and the archvillain Adolf Hitler. His family members and close friends, in like manner, whirl about the globe in pursuit of adventure, love, and identity.

Despite the uneasy peace negotiated at Munich in 1937, Europe is openly preparing for war in 1939. Hitler dominates the headlines, and the question is not whether he will provoke war but where: He already has Czechoslovakia, but he clearly wants to invade Poland, France, and the largest target of all, the Soviet Union. As a military man, Victor Henry is clearly involved, but when his sons follow him into naval service, the events of the war become events in each character’s personal life. Byron falls in love with Natalie Jastrow, whose Jewish ancestry is as much an issue with his own family as it is with the Fascist leaders of Europe. Her uncle, Aaron Jastrow, affords a further complication when he first refuses, and then desperately tries, to leave Mussolini’s Italy. As Victor’s new and unplanned intelligence career sends him dashing off to all the major nations, the separation from his wife, Rhoda, leads to extramarital affairs for both him and Rhoda. Meanwhile, Byron and his sister Madeline take advantage of this turmoil to rebel: Byron, by marrying Natalie; Madeline, by going to work for a famous but lecherous news commentator, Hugh Cleveland. Despite everyone’s avowed desire for peace, the threat of war has brought excitement into their lives.

Victor Henry’s translation of the (fictitious) writings of the German General Armin von Roon, called World Empire Lost, offers astute but biased views of world events. Similarly, the occasional appearance of real-life figures, especially President Roosevelt, provides a strong historical thread to the subplots involving the various main characters. Most of the action focuses on the European front, though the novel ends with the dramatic shift of world attention to the Pacific. Although the progress of world events is well known, the fate of the characters remains more or less in suspense.

The novel’s conclusion does not attempt to answer the great twofold puzzle of the attack on Pearl Harbor: why Japan perpetrated, and how the United States could have allowed, such a devastating surprise. There is no attempt of any consequence to view the war from Japan’s perspective, though von Roon’s “book” and several other characters offer a broad range of German viewpoints. Because the novel is the first part of a two-volume sequence, the fates of the principal characters are necessarily left unresolved; the book ends as the United States officially enters the war.

The Characters

Victor Henry does not come off as a wholly sympathetic or even heroic figure. Rather, like many of the “heroes” of The Caine Mutiny (1951), Victor is a flawed man with professional integrity and a knack for being in the right place at the critical time. Roosevelt praises his eye for detail, and no one questions his dedication as an officer. Yet he himself admits that he has been a mediocre husband and, to his daughter Madeline especially, a rather poor and distant father. Despite his long service record and strength of character, he has no really close personal friends in the navy. His son Warren is very much of the same mold: tough, loyal, athletic, “navy” head to toe. The potential black sheep of the family, Byron, possesses as much physical courage as the other Henry men, and more personal courage, as shown by his marrying a Jewess and his impertinence toward superior officers. The women are more complex, but only Madeline transcends the stereotype of 1940’s women: devoted to a man, preferably one’s husband, and resigned to a “woman’s place.” Her relationship with Hugh Cleveland defies convention more than does Byron’s sometimes trivial rebelliousness.

Victor Henry’s loyalty to flag and navy contrasts with his often wandering eye and occasionally wandering heart. The younger women of the novel interest him more than his still attractive wife. His fascination with the darkly beautiful Natalie eventually leads to his grudging approval of Byron’s marriage.

The central women of the novel, along with Byron Henry, possess a loyalty and depth of character perhaps beyond those of the more conventional men. Natalie Jastrow risks her own and her baby’s safety to help her eccentric uncle, Madeline overlooks Hugh Cleveland’s obnoxious private personality to help him utilize his public talents, and both Pamela and Rhoda set aside propriety for the sake of love. Although, as a member of the family, Warren Henry is “important,” he seems rather wooden compared to his flamboyant younger brother, the daring women, and even his complex, brooding father.

Thus the novel appeals to both men and women. The conventions of the time and no doubt the author’s own inclinations emphasize love rather than sex, but the treatment is more realistic than romantic. The personal cowardice of Byron’s rival, Ambassador Leslie Slote, and the backbiting of some of Victor Henry’s rivals put the main figures in a better light, for they at least have substance and strength.

Critical Context

The Winds of War invites immediate comparison with Wouk’s most famous novel, The Caine Mutiny, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1952. Critics naturally contrast staid and dependable Victor Henry with the unstable, incompetent Captain Queeg. Yet a more apt comparison is that made by Timothy Foote, between The Winds of War and Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace (1865-1869). Like War and Peace, and unlike Wouk’s earlier “navy” novel, The Winds of War presents a vast panorama that ultimately spans the globe. Wouk himself acknowledges that he had always intended to write a “big” novel after his own navy career in World War II, and he was tempted to expand The Caine Mutiny before cutting it back to its limited scope.

Wouk’s novels run against the trend of experimental novels and, with their middle-class, patriotic values, are not high in critical esteem. The Winds of War was his first real blockbuster since the 1950’s; he had turned away from fiction to write a personal account, This Is My God (1959, 1973), and his subsequent novels, Youngblood Hawke (1962) and Don’t Stop the Carnival (1965), were on a lesser scale. He had been carrying the idea for The Winds of War for twenty-five years before the novel’s publication. The reading public, always his kindest critic, received The Winds of War with considerable enthusiasm, though it did not become a household word until 1983, when it was made into a highly celebrated television miniseries.

The critics, who almost universally deplored the pedestrian mediocrity of Marjorie Morningstar (1955) and Youngblood Hawke, recognized that in The Winds of War Wouk had demonstrated an astute analysis of military strategy and depth of historical detail. They also noted, however, that the characters were not wholly believable, and Victor Henry was simply too blandly patriotic and, at bottom, unattractive.

The Winds of War set the scene for its sequel, War and Remembrance, which followed in 1978 and, like its predecessor, quickly became a best-seller. Together, these two profound historical romances, as Wouk calls them, represent sixteen years of research and writing; they constitute an enduring contribution to the literature of World War II.

Bibliography

Gerard, Philip. “The Great American War Novels.” World and I 10 (June, 1995): 54-63. Gerard notes that World War II was “the last public event that defined a generation of novelists. . . .” In this essay, he looks at the works of many of them, including Wouk’s The Caine Mutiny. Although Gerard does not address The Winds of War directly, his comments can be extended to Wouk’s other war novels.

Mazzeno, Laurence W. Herman Wouk. New York: Twayne, 1994. A collection of critical essays that explores various aspects of the works of Herman Wouk. Includes an index and bibliographical references for further reading.

Shapiro, Edward S. “The Jew as Patriot: Herman Wouk and American Jewish Identity.” American Jewish History 84 (December, 1996): 333-351. Shapiro explores similarities between American identity and Jewish identity in the works of Herman Wouk, which portray the Jew as the defender of American institutions and values. Shapiro also notes that Wouk viewed the history of the American West and Israel’s struggle for independence as being analogous.

Shatzky, Joel, and Michael Taub, eds. Contemporary Jewish-American Novelists: A Bio-Critical Sourcebook. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1997. Includes an entry on Wouk’s life, major works, and themes, with an overview of his critical reception and a bibliography of primary and secondary sources.