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Early in 1942 the playwright Maxwell Anderson, about to begin writing a war play called "The Eve of St. Mark", came to Fort Bragg looking for background and color. Pvt. Hargrove was assigned to guide him around and he also lent him his own Charlotte News scrapbook which turned out to be exactly what Anderson was looking for. To return the favor Anderson got in touch with a neighbor of his, William M. Sloane, III, who was editor of the publishing house Henry Holt and Company, and the ball had already started rolling.
Sloane put the book together, entitled it, "See Here Private Hargrove", and published it in July 1942. The book was sensationally successful and became the top non-fiction seller on the New York Times Best Seller list for three months and continued on that list for four additional months. It was published in several foreign editions, including a Danish translation entitled "Hos Her Menig Hargrove". All told, the book sold around four million copies and is still selling in paper back.
While in the service of his country, Private Hargrove trained as a cook, but transferred to the public relations office at Fort Bragg and was subsequently assigned to New York as a reporter on "Yank". He served overseas in China as a "Yank" reporter attached to General Claire Chennault's Flying Tigers. John Bushimi (other soldier in the picture with Hargrove, on page 1) was killed in action as a combat photographer during the invasion of the Marshal Islands on Eniwetok in early 1944.
The book "See Here Private Hargrove" was the beginning of a prolific writing career for Hargrove. He wrote other novels, screen plays (his adaptation of Meredith Willson's "Music Man" is probably the most memorable), teleplays, including scripts for "The Waltons", "Maverick", "I Spy", and many others.
Marion Hargrove is known in the Jernigan Family Genealogy circles as the most knowledgeable person on Jernigan History and some of his working pages on this subject are available to us at the Jernigan Connection Newsletter. During the 1998 Dunn Reunion, Mr. Hargrove was asked if we could use this information in future issues of our newsletter and he graciously agreed.
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