Back from Tobruk

Croswell Bowen began writing and taking photographs for Back from Tobruk in 1941 while en route with his unit of American Field Service volunteer ambulance drivers to serve alongside the British Eighth Army in North Africa. His message took shape not on the front lines of battle but rather in the field dressing stations and hospital ships among the wounded and dying from war's reverse supply lines. A Catholic pacifist at heart, Bowen found himself united in shared suffering even with his former battlefield enemies. He had seen the sick and wounded from all over the globe treat one another with respect and compassion. Here, perhaps, lies the hope of the world of tomorrow, he wrote. Steaming past the Statue of Liberty back into New York City's harbor, he felt a new pride in America's conceptions of freedom and respect for the dignity of man. When the great leaders sit down at the peace table, he wrote of his fellow servicemen, they might take a lesson from those men. Later a successful journalist and author, Bowen never forgot what he had witnessed during his time in North Africa. Back From Tobruk documents the brutality of war and the resilience of the human spirit.