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Herman Wouk, Orthodox Jewish author of 'The Caine Mutiny' and 'This Is My God', dies at 103

The Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist saw a number of his works of fiction adapted into movies - but arguably it was one of his works of non-fiction that had the most far-reaching effect

May 20, 2019 09:00
Cast members applaud Herman Wouk  during the curtain call at the Broadway Opening of "The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial" on May 7, 2006 in New York
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Herman Wouk, Pulitzer Prize winning author who brought Orthodox Judaism into the mainstream with his non-fiction work This Is My God, has died aged 103.

The writer was perhaps best known for his 1951 work, The Caine Mutiny, about a destroyer-minesweeper in the Pacific during the Second World War. It received the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and was subsequently adapted into a Broadway Play. It would be Hollywood, however, which brought it to a truly international audience, with the 1954 film of the same name featuring Humphrey Bogart, José Ferrer, Van Johnson and Fred MacMurray.

Born in 1913 to two Jewish immigrants from what was then Russia (now Belarus), Wouk was raised Orthodox, taught by his grandfather, who emigrated from Minsk to New York when his grandson was 13.

In the wake of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour in December 1941, Wouk joined the US Naval Reserves, serving as an officer aboard two destroyer minesweepers. He would participate in a number of key campaigns in the Pacific, including the Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign, the Battle of Luzon and the Battle of Okinawa. He would later draw on his own experiences to write two books – Aurora Dawn and later The Caine Mutiny.