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William Mulvihill
WILLIAM PATRICK MULVIHILL (1923-2004) was an American author and novelist, most notable of which was the New York Times bestseller The Sands of Kalahari, which was later made into a movie of the sa...view moreWILLIAM PATRICK MULVIHILL (1923-2004) was an American author and novelist, most notable of which was the New York Times bestseller The Sands of Kalahari, which was later made into a movie of the same name in 1965. Mulvihill was the author of a dozen novels; Fire Mission (1957) was his first. Mulvihill’s military career mirror’s the experiences described in Fire Mission: He completed boot camp at Fort Dix, New Jersey, and then infantry training at Fort Benning, Georgia. In 1942 he was sent to the University of New Hampshire for the Army Specialized Training Program, upon completion he would have been commissioned as a second lieutenant in the OSS. However, before he could finish the program, Mulvihill was sent to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to receive field artillery training. He was then sent to England, arriving in Europe after the D-Day invasion. Because of his command of the German language and additional Army language training, he served as a forward observer with both the 78th Division and the 2nd Ranger Battalion during campaigns in the Ardennes, Rhineland, and Central Europe, and experienced combat at the Battle of the Bulge. Upon return to the United States, he completed his studies at Cornell, earning a bachelor’s degree in German Literature.view less