A Bell for Adano is a first novel by a reporter and is as much a documentary account as it is a piece of fiction. Hersey the reporter received more praise than Hersey the novelist. Readers today would find the American soldier as he appeared in the dispatches of correspondents during World War II too idealized. Most of these accounts stressed the bravery of the GI in battle.

The correspondents also tried to assure the families of American soldiers that their sons and fathers were living up to their expectations when not fighting.

These descriptions filled the requirements of wartime propaganda. Richard Tregaski's Quadacanal Diary (1943), the dispatches of Ernie Pyle (who of all correspondents probably knew the GI's best), and Hersey's own reporting closely follow this pattern. Hersey had, after all, in his Men of Bataan presented a number of idealized portraits of American soldiers, including...