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Europe. On Tuesday, January 18, he boarded the USS George Washington, a troop transport heading for England, where he would complete his counterintelligence training in preparation for the invasion. When the day of embarkation finally arrived, Salinger felt calmer than he had expected. The transport ship was also conveniently docked in New York, allowing him the opportunity to re-create the quiet farewell of Babe Gladwaller with his own family. And just as Babe had done in “Last Day of the Last Furlough,” Salinger sought to avoid the emotions of a public send-off and forbade his family, especially his mother, to see him off at the dock. As he marched in formation to the ship, he suddenly caught sight of his mother. She was scurrying alongside him, ducking behind lampposts and trying her best to remain unseen.9 Once on board, Salinger settled into his bunk while the soldiers around him joked and laughed to camouflage their nerves.

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Salinger cannot have been surprised that his mother had defied his instructions and come to see him off. His actual departure gave rise to emotions that he could not have anticipated when writing “Furlough,” and he sought to acknowledge his emotions in another story about a soldier’s final farewell. He began this next work perhaps even aboard ship, a short story called “Once a Week Won’t Kill You,” about a soldier leaving for the service and his concern for an aunt. In this story too, there would be no noisy send-off, no showy parade or marching band to usher away young men about to die. It would, though, be laced with nostalgia for a world Salinger was already beginning to miss and feared he might never see again.

On January 29, 1944, the George Washington docked at Liverpool, where he joined tens of thousands of American troops in preparation for the incursion into occupied Europe. Traveling directly on to London, he was formally embedded into the 12th Infantry Regiment of the 4th Infantry Division as counterintelligence officer and staff sergeant, making the unit Salinger’s home until the end of the war.

From February 1944, all of Salinger’s correspondence passed through military censors, thus muddying the specifics of his actions while in England. We know from his letters that he spent time in Tiverton, the Devon town where the 4th Infantry had its headquarters, and in Derbyshire and London, attending CIC training courses. As the invasion drew nearer, he participated in amphibious landing exercises on the south coast at Slapton Sands, between Plymouth and Dartmouth, and on the north coast at Woolacombe Bay, sites chosen by the Allied High Command because they resembled the French coastline.

Tiverton was a town very similar to the one described in his 1950 story “For Esmé—with Love and Squalor.” It was small and charming and had a population of about 10,000 before its own invasion by American servicemen. Set among the hills of Devon, Tiverton is a quaint place with narrow cobblestone streets that meander along the contours of the land. They were streets that Salinger loved to stroll in his spare time, often stepping into a pub for a drink or slipping into a church during choir practice.

The 4th Infantry had taken over a number of large buildings in and around Tiverton. Division headquarters was located at Collipriest House, a large estate just outside town, and it was here that Salinger collected his mail, reported for assignments, and, as in “For Esmé,” attended “rather specialized pre-Invasion training” courses.10 These courses instructed Salinger in combat espionage, sabotage, and subversion, and how to deliver security lectures to the troops, search captured towns, and interrogate both civilians and enemy troops in occupied territory.

The image of J. D. Salinger wandering the streets of Tiverton in pensive solitude illustrates the contemplative mood that absorbed him while he was stationed in England. During the months he trained for the invasion, Salinger began to reevaluate his attitude toward both his writing and his life.11

But the army had changed him. Since his induction,