Gerald Astor, 81; journalist wrote of Americans in combat
NEW YORK - Gerald Astor, an author and journalist who drew on the remembrances of combat veterans in his books recounting epic battles of World War II, died Sunday at his home in Scarsdale, N.Y. He was 81.
The cause was apparently a heart attack, said his son, Ted.
Through interviews and correspondence with veterans and accounts from their journals, Mr. Astor, who served with the 97th Infantry Division in World War II, told of combat as experienced by foot soldiers, sailors, and pilots.
"Those people who are there know what it sounded like, what they saw, what they thought and what actually happened, as opposed to some of the official accounts, which at times are self-serving and not wholly accurate," Mr. Astor told CNN on Veterans Day 2005.
In its review of "A Blood-Dimmed Tide," Mr. Astor's account of the Battle of the Bulge, The Plain Dealer of Cleveland said he conveyed "the sight, feel, smell and taste of a historic battle told by soldiers who did the fighting, not those who moved map pins back and forth in the safety of a rear echelon headquarters."
In a 1997 review of "The Mighty Eighth," Mr. Astor's history of the Eighth Air Force's missions over Europe, Publishers Weekly called him "one of the most accomplished oral historians at work today."
Gerald Morton Astor, a native of New Haven, grew up in Mount Vernon, N.Y. After his wartime service, he received a bachelor's degree from Princeton. He was the picture editor of Sports Illustrated in its early years and worked as an editor for Sport magazine, Look, The Saturday Evening Post, and Time.
Besides his accounts of the Battle of the Bulge and the air war in Europe, Mr. Astor wrote of World War II in books, including "The Greatest War: Americans in Combat, 1941-1945," "June 6, 1944: The Voices of D-Day," "Operation Iceberg: The Invasion and Conquest of Okinawa in World War II," and biographies of Major General Terry Allen, a leading combat commander in both North Africa and Europe, and the Nazi medical experimenter Josef Mengele.
He also wrote "The Right to Fight: A History of African Americans in the Military" and "Presidents at War," an account of presidents' evolving assertion of authority to take military action in the absence of a congressional declaration of war.
Mr. Astor edited "The Baseball Hall of Fame 50th Anniversary Book" and wrote a biography of the heavyweight champion Joe Louis, "And a Credit to His Race." He collaborated with Anthony Villano, a former FBI agent who recruited informants from the Mafia, in "Brick Agent."
In the preface to his book on D-day, Mr. Astor wrote that "only through the words and memories of the men who fought that day does one grasp a sense of what war is about, how it consumes human lives and what is masked by the dry term 'casualties.' "
"Combat is a terrible experience," Mr. Astor told CNN 60 years after the end of World War II. "At the same time, it's very exciting, and the life that one leads in the military builds bonds that last a lifetime."
