"Courage" by Dorothy Cameron Disney: an obcure American WWII Story in Chinese middle school literature textbook that influenced a generation. Anyone know more about this piece?

by leokorea

I went to middle school and high school in China. Back in the 90s and early 2000s, the textbooks in Chinese schools were very standardized. That means almost everyone in my generation knows a World War 2 story about an American soldier who parachuted to Normandy, since most of us use the same textbook.

The original Chinese can be found here: https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%8B%87%E6%B0%94/5621005

The interesting thing is: no one in China or anywhere seems to know if the story is real or fictional, where did the author got her source, how did it end up in a Chinese government sanctioned middle school literature textbook, etc.

Given how much impact it has made on a whole generation of Chinese population, there is almost no information about the origin of this story, its authors background, its authencity, we can't even find the original English version on the internet.

The title of story is Courage (maybe not a literal translation of its original title), by a rather obscure American author by the name of Dorothy Cameron Disney, according to a Chinese Reddit type website.

https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/135029980047099685/answer/2833614875.html

https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/153519246/answer/458586293.html

The story is set in France during World War II. The author, DC Disney, a wartime journalist, heard the story from a unnamed solider during a lunch party in England. The unnamed solider was parachuted to a wrong location during the invasion. He found a farm house nearby and its owners, a French couple, were willing to hide him from the Germans.

Unfortunately, the Germans spotted the parachute as he landed and they searched the farm house and found the American parachuter. The French man was summarily executed on the spot as a warning to others who dare to offer assistance to the Americans. The execution left the woman a widow and an orphan child.

The Germans, however, were not sure what to do with American. So they lock him up in a small cabin. The American soldier managed to escape from the log cabin and ran deep into the forrest. The Germans got a hint of this and started to search the forrest at night.

The American solider, not knowing where to go or hide, made a stunning decision: go back to that same farm house again. With the dead body still laying on the ground, the American asked the French woman, "can you hide me?" And she replied: "of course! Be quick."

Hiding in a cellar for three days, according to the story, the American soldier was regrouped with his unit. During these three days, the German soldiers did not even bother to search the farm house again, beacuae "they cannot possibly comprehend the spiritual and moral height of the people that they are dealing with." (my cheesy paraphrase from a potentially none literal translation).

At the end of the story, the author expressed her fascination about the two characters of this "true story", that both the French woman and American soldier were truly courageous. (At the point, the teacher will ask the meaning of courage and why is the American soldier courageous etc...)

After almost twenty years, having lived in a few country by now, I am still deeply in love with this story. As a teacher myself, I feel the urge to share this story with my own students. Honestly, I don't care if it is real or fictional: this is one of the few memorable pieces of literatures we used to read that is related to America and its people. Given the vast (and widening) ideological and political differences China and the US have today, this story seemed to be taken out of the textbook for good (I need to double confirm it though). However, I adore this story so much that I hate to see it fade away. So I decided to write this long post and hopefully we keep this memory alive by finding more about this piece.

Is there anyone who knows more about this story? How about its author, Dorothy Cameron Disney, is she even the author? Was it published in the US in any form? Can we find an original English version?

Thank you.

10kbuckets

I can help with part of this!

The story is called "A Question of Courage," by Dorothy Cameron Disney and it was published in the September 1945 issue of The Reader's Digest, pages 61-63. You can read it in English on the Internet Archive.

It looks like the story was also published in Secrets & Spies: Behind the Scenes Stories of World War II (published in 1964 by Reader's Digest) - I searched for "farmhouse" in the Google books entry, and it looks an excerpt from page 398 belongs to your story. It reads: "...body of the murdered French farmer still lay. Once again the American stood at the silent farmhouse, knocking softly at the kitchen door. The woman came quickly. Her face was pale, her eyes dulled with tears. For perhaps a second they faced each other. She..."

I also searched the word "courage," and that returns an excerpt from page 396 that appears to be a title page. It reads: "A Question of Courage By Dorothy Cameron Disney. At a rather stiff military luncheon in England where nobody..."

And the good news is that used copies of Secrets & Spies: Behind the Scenes Stories of World War II seem to be readily available from various online bookstores for under 10 USD, so if you want to have a hard copy of it to hang on to forever, that's an option.

Unfortunately I can't answer any of your background questions, but we have at least confirmed an original English title, publication info, authorship, and found a copy of the story itself. I'd also love to hear how the story ended up in your textbook - I'm sure it'll turn out to be a very fascinating chain of events!

gerardmenfin

Here is the story, "A question of courage", published in the Reader's Digest, volume 47, September 1945 (cover). Disney, a war correspondent during the war for the Digest and the Woman's Home Companion, presents it as a true story she heard at a dinner from the hero of the story himself, a paratrooper of the 101st Airborne Division. It was republished in 1964 in a Reader's Digest compilation titled Secrets & Spies: Behind-the-scenes Stories of World War II. Disney was not totally obscure: she had a good career as mystery writer and journalist before the war, and after the war as the "creator of the modern marriage advice" (Washington Post obit, 1992): she ran for 30 years a column titled "Can This Marriage Be Saved?" for the Ladies Home Journal.

Is the courage story true? She says so, but then her husband was an executive for the Office of War Information, which was a US government propaganda agency during World War II. Established in June 1942, the OWI subsidized the Writers' War Board, a very specific propaganda organization made of popular writers (Howell, 1997):

While the organization utilized thousands of writers nationwide to develop and place subtle propaganda in all communications media, the board itself was a self-recruited group of about 20 authors from the New York City area, mainly involved with commercial and popular writing. [...] Articles by well-known writers were often placed in national magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post, Reader's Digest, or Collier's. Pro-war effort, or "pro allied" themes were sometimes inserted into the adventures of popular comic book characters. Such initiatives were made possible by members' personal contacts with publishers or producers.

The WWB included people like Rex Stout, Oscar Hammerstein II, Pearl Buck and William Shirer. The group had good contact with the armed forces, and wrote propaganda pieces covering all aspects of war, from black market to the heroic actions of US soldiers.

It is likely that Dorothy Cameron Disney was working for the WWB and that the piece was produced as propaganda (though it appeared after the war, in September 1945). This does not mean that the story was made up: a military historian with good knowledge of the 101st Airborne Division could help you here.

Sources [edit: added full list of sources]