“Someone Who Knows Told Me …” (Details)
citation: Cosmopolitan, December 1943, 115(6):14
alias: None
teaser: None
summary: Finney narates three examples of how careless remarks by otherwise patriotic citizens aided enemy agents, and resulted in the death of US servicemen.
words: 577
genre: Public Service
similar: None
people: Unnamed Narrator, Mrs. Richard Brown, Sergeant Abbott, David Redstone, Frank Berry, Pfc. Abel, Pfc. Abramson, Sergeant Abruzzi, Major Accles
places: New York, NY; Des Moines, IA; Phoenix, AZ
comments: Echoing the Office of War Information's
(OWI) Loose
Lips Sink Ships
campaign, Finney drives the point home in this briefest
of his stories. As an advertising copywriter, Finney was doing his part for
the War Advertising Council. A few months later, Victor Keppler of the Adjutant
General's Office, embodied Finney's theme in a Wanted for Murder
poster, showing a young woman with the caption, Her
careless talk costs lives.
December 1943 was the midpoint of the second World War. Although the Normandy
Invasion (D-Day) was only six months away, the invasion to which Finney referred
was probably the invasion of Italy that took place in July of that year,
resulting in the unconditional surrender of Italy to the Allies on
September 3. In his 1955 book, The
Body Snatchers,
Finney relates details about house-to-house fighting a
friend had told me about the war, the fighting in Italy.
Frank Berry, described in the story as a man in Phoenix, Arizona who bragged
about just finishing a rush job for the Navy, is the name of Jack Finney's
step father. Finney dedicated The Body Snatchers for
my mother and dad, Mr. and Mrs. Frank D. Berry.
