Maine Bound is a column featuring new books written by Maine authors, set in the Pine Tree State or that have other local ties.

NEVER ALONE-UNTIL ADMIRAL HALSEY LEFT … WITH EVERYONE ELSE, by Harrison E. Lemont, Dorrance Publishing Co. Inc.; Pittsburgh, Pa., 2003; 94 pages, $17.

V-J Day, Aug. 15, 1945, found Harrison Lemont, two platoons of the 727 SAW Co., signal aircraft warning, a few Marines and a lot of gooney birds on Tori Shima. The birds constantly showed their displeasure by dive-bombing the GIs. Passing submarines thought the hunk of coral, measuring 150 feet by 1,500 feet, was an enemy ship and launched torpedoes at it.

Lemont was part of an early warning system unit that used portable radar to track and report incoming Japanese planes. The islet was his last combat post in a career that had begun with the invasion of Leyte the previous October.

This slim volume chronicles the military life of a soldier who was always in the second wave landing on an island. That doesn’t mean that the author and his buddies were ever far from danger. A few hours after LST 704 had landed Lemont on Leyte, it was hit by a Japanese bomb killing everyone left on board.

We learn that not all the enemies moved on two legs. The tropics are full of snakes, insects, and vermin of all descriptions, to say nothing of various illnesses that take no prisoners. Lemont came down with dengue fever, the gift of a Philippine mosquito. That was followed by a bout of yellow jaundice that nearly did him in. In spite of the very real dangers and deprivations, the author managed to make it back to Kittery and retire after a 50-year career as a public accountant.

Perhaps Lemont’s career choice reflects the tenor of his prose. The reader is never really gripped by the description of what is happening. If bullets are flying, we want to hear their whine or feel the concussion of an artillery shell exploding overhead.

That said, the book should be of interest to students of World War II as well as veterans who want to learn what it was like in someone else’s war. You could call this a book for the “old guys.” The trouble is that the print is so small the “old guys” are going to have trouble reading it. – Chuck Veeder

GRINGO: THE MAKING OF A REBEL, by Emil Willimetz, Peter E. Randall Publisher, Portsmouth, N.H., 2003; 508 pages, $26.95.

“Gringo” reminds us how far our civilization, depending on the reader’s viewpoint, has advanced or declined in the last 70 years. At the end of his freshman year in high school, young Emil hitchhiked from his home in the Bronx to the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair. He made it safely both ways, although, not without plenty of tribulations. It was the start of a career that spanned not only decades, but also a number of occupations and continents.

The child of Austrian immigrants, he was an anti-war radical while in high school. Black Mountain College in the mountains of western North Carolina was his next destination. Black Mountain was an “experimental school with emphasis on fine arts and progressive education.” Graduating in 1940, he became a labor organizer for the CIO in the South. In spite of his high school anti-war stance, he joined the Army and landed on Omaha Beach less than a month after D-Day. Before his time in Europe was done, he had fought his way into Germany, been decorated, and found his mother’s family in Austria.

After the war he became involved in the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee.

There he took pictures and made films of the struggling civil rights movement. Later he moved to Peru where he made more films. This book was written from his retirement home in Knox County, Maine. Unfortunately, it was not published until after his death in July 2003, and we are all the poorer for that fact. This was an individual with whom you would want to spend some time. Fortunately, you can do it through his book. Alas, he planned on covering much of his later life in a second volume.

There is one overriding characteristic to Willimetz’ personality that shines on every page of “Gringo.” He was a passionate man of principle. Whether as a labor organizer, a photographer or a filmmaker, he often put himself in dangerous circumstances while working for those who were powerless by themselves. Readers of this book will be reminded of the many good reasons for the formation of labor unions. Likewise, you will be reminded of the dichotomy of opportunities in the Jim Crow South.

The chapters about his Wold War II experiences will grip the reader. You can hear the whine of bullets overhead and the concussion of artillery shells. He makes palpable the bitter cold of the winter of 1944. That said, his passion leads to the book’s primary weakness, that of organization. As the writer plunges into one interesting experience after another, he pursues each to its ultimate conclusion, regardless of where it fits into the grand scheme. It’s a shame, but the reader may feel a bit like a pinball before finishing this otherwise worthwhile book. – Chuck Veeder

THE BALLAD OF LOUIS WAGNER AND OTHER NEW ENGLAND STORIES IN VERSE, by John Perrault; Peter E. Randall Publisher, Portsmouth, N.H., 2003; 82 pages, hardcover, $25.

Included with John Perrault’s neat collection of ballads, songs and poems is a CD, which appears to be an afterthought, but turns out to be the main attraction. Perrault, of Portsmouth, N.H., is an attorney who practices in both his home state and Maine, and like some others in his profession, has cultivated larger ambitions in the arts.

In Perrault’s case, his avocation has been music and he has devoted years to writing and performing ballads that tell stories of Maine and New Hampshire people, some fictional, some legendary. “The Ballad of Louis Wagner” provides the lyrics to 10 of his ballads and six of his songs, plus 16 titles in a section called “Poems.”

The ballads are what they purport to be – verse narratives intended to be sung. The only difficulty is that when read from the page, they don’t scan. That is, the rhythm of the lines is bumpy and irregular, and in every poem, just when a rhythmic structure begins to find its feet, clusters of extraneous syllables demolish the meter. While the stories are interesting, the lines are hard to read.

All this is cleared up when you find the CD tucked inside the back cover and hear Perrault singing his songs. His voice is distinctly imitation Dylan, well done, and since he (alone, I guess) knows the secret of how many syllables must be packed into certain metrical feet of his lines, the ballads as sung are cool to listen to. Bob Dylan’s sense of meter is still better than Perrault’s, though, I’m afraid.

The 16 verses of the last section are the poetic highlight of the book, verbally better-handled than any of the ballads, and – gratifyingly – much more energetic and emotionally honest than most of the articulate dullness that comes out of academic writing programs. The last poem in the book, “All Souls Eve,” is probably the best of the collection. Thank goodness for lawyers with a penchant for making music instead of more laws. – Dana Wilde