How JD Salinger’s Experience of WWII Suffused All of His Writing, Even Catcher in the Rye

J.D. Salinger drafted much of his early fiction while serving in some of World War Two's fiercest battles, including Normandy, the Battle of the Bulge, and the liberation of a Dachau subcamp, carrying pages soaked in his own experience of combat. According to Literary Hub, that trauma shaped a thinly fictionalized stand-in named Holden Caulfield, and Salinger's real alma mater, Valley Forge Military Academy, became the basis for Holden's fictional Pencey Prep in The Catcher in the Rye. The novel turns seventy-five this year, and Literary Hub notes that Salinger rarely spoke of his service directly, channeling it instead almost entirely through fiction.

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