Lucy Herndon Crockett

She was born in Honolulu, Hawaii,[1] the daughter of Nell Botts (Johnson) Crockett and Col. Cary Ingram Crockett.[2] William Lewis Herndon, a commander in the U.S. Navy, was her great-uncle.[2] She grew up on military posts and was educated at a number of different schools.[2] She lived in the Philippines while her father was serving as an advisor to Governor-General Theodore Roosevelt Jr., an experience that fed into two of her earliest two books, Lucio and His Nuong (1939) and That Mario (1941).[2]

She served in World War II with the Red Cross, spending five years in New Caledonia, Guadalcanal, the Philippines, Japan, and Korea.[2] Of the nine books she wrote and illustrated, several reflect her life during and after the war.[1][3] The Magnificent Bastards (1953), her best-known book, was about her experiences with the U.S. Marine Corps, while Popcorn on the Ginza (1949) was about her time in occupied Japan.[1] The Magnificent Bastards was made into a 1956 film starring William Holden and Deborah Kerr under the title The Proud and Profane.[1] Interviewers of Crockett stated that she was "mild-looking" and seemed, "too gentle for the ugliness she described" in her books.[2]

After the war, she lived in Smyth County, Virginia, where she ran a gift shop.[2] As she got older, she became somewhat paranoid and was placed under house arrest for "threatening behavior" toward John F. Kennedy.[4]

Her papers are held by Virginia Tech.[3]

In 2015, the William King Museum of Art mounted an exhibition about her life, The Proud and the Profane: The Colorful Life, Literature, and Illustrations of Lucy Herndon Crockett.[4][5]

• Lucio and His Nuong: A Tale of the Philippine Islands (1939)
• Capitan: The Story of an Army Mule (1940)
• The Mario (1941)
• Uncle Bouqui of Haiti (1942)
• Popcorn on the Ginza: An Informal Portrait of Postwar Japan (1949)
• Teru: A Tale of Yokohama (1950)
• The Magnificent Bastards (1953)
• The Year Something Almost Happened in Pinoso (1960)
• Pong Choolie You Rascal! (1963)