A Time of War Trivia Quiz

Answer: Little Women

The book 'Little Women' was written by Louisa May Alcott and first published in 1868, while a continuation of the story entitled 'Good Wives' followed in 1869 and was subsequently published with 'Little Women' in one volume. The original 'Little Women' follows four sisters, Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy, who are aged 16, 15, 13 and 12 respectively at the start of the book, through the course of just over a year. They and their mother Margaret, who they call 'Marmee', live in Massachusetts while their father is away serving as a chaplain with the Union Army for most of the book. The characters were loosely based on Alcott's own family.

'Little Women' has been adapted into other media under the same title, beginning with the first of several stage plays in 1912. This was soon followed by two silent movie versions in 1917 and 1918 then a movie with sound in 1933 and one in colour in 1949. Several more movie versions followed, including one in 2019 that received six Oscar nominations. A number of television adaptations have also been made, such as a 1958 musical version shown on CBS and four serialised versions transmitted between 1950 and 2017 by the British Broadcasting Corporation.

The three alternative books were also set during the American Civil War and Louisa May Alcott wrote 'Hospital Sketches' (1863) based on her own experiences as a nurse. Steven Crane was the author of 'The Red Badge of Courage' (1895) about a soldier, while the epic tale 'Gone With the Wind' (1936) centering on a 'Southern belle' was written by Margaret Mitchell.

Answer: Dad's Army

Jimmy Perry and David Croft wrote the sitcom 'Dad's Army' about a platoon of the officially-named Home Guard, which consisted of units formed to protect Britain from enemy invaders. The title of the series refers to a nickname given to the real Home Guard and derives from the fact that many of the troops were too old to be called up into the regular armed forces, although some were young men awaiting callup and others, such as farmers, were in reserved occupations. They worked at their civilian jobs during the day and trained and exercised in the evenings and at weekends. The sitcom reflects these facts and the fictional platoon was based in a seaside town on the south coast of England where an important duty was to watch for any attempts by Germans to land.

First shown between 1968 and 1977, the series follows the platoon from its formation and shows them becoming involved in mainly comic incidents of different kinds. These range from arguing with the air raid wardens over who should have the use of a church hall for training to dealing with an unexploded bomb that had landed inside a building. The television shows were twice adapted into movies, with the first being released in 1971 and the second, set later than the television series, being released in 2016. 'Dad's Army' was also adapted into a stage show which commenced in 1975, and another one which began in 2007, while most of the television scripts were adapted for radio and broadcast on national BBC Radio 4 from 1974 onwards.

Perry and Croft also wrote the sitcom 'It Ain't Half Hot Mum', which was first shown between 1974 and 1981 and was set in an army concert party serving during in India and Burma during the Second World War. Roy Clarke created and wrote 'Last of the Summer Wine', which was first broadcast between 1973 and 2010 and features several pensioners living in West Yorkshire. David Renwick wrote 'One Foot in the Grave', which was first shown between 1990 and 2000 and concerns the mishaps of a grumpy early retiree.

Answer: Call of Duty

'Call of Duty' is the overall name of a mainly first-person shooter video game series and the games have been set in different times and involved different kinds of military organisations. The first four games were set in the Second World War, as was an occasional later game. Later games in the series have also been set in major wars or in real or fictional smaller wars and in battles against terrorist organisations. In the first game, just called 'Call of Duty' and released in 2003, the player has the role of a infantry soldier in the British, American or Soviet national army in Second World War Europe. The game was developed by Infinity Ward and published by Activision and it was well-received on its release with a number of critics deeming it the 2003 'Game of the Year' and the NPD Research Group naming it the eighth-best-selling computer game of 2003.

Among the many subsequent games in the series, the 2010 'Call of Duty: Black Ops' game is the seventh main game in the series and it is set in the Cold War and the Vietnam War in the 1960s. It was developed by Treyarch and published by Activision and during the game the player controls one of the CIA operatives who carry out covert missions against the Russians in different countries. The nineteenth main game, the 2022 'Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II', has one-person and multi-player options and is set in contemporary real and fictional countries. It features special operations units and terrorist forces and, like the 2003 game, was developed by Infinity Ward and published by Activision.

'Silent Hill', a survival horror game developed by Team Silent and published by Konami in 1999, concerns a man looking for his daughter in a fictional town. Developed by Ubisoft Montreal and released by Ubisoft in 2007, 'Assassin's Creed' was the first game in what became a series featuring assassins in different historical ages. Mojang Studios developed 'Minecraft' and fully released it in 2011 and the game is set in a three-dimensional world where players can mine raw materials and create items and structures.

Answer: A Farewell to Arms

All of the possible answers were written by Ernest Hemingway but only the 1929 novel 'A Farewell to Arms' is set in the First World War and it was strongly influenced by the author's own experiences. Ernest Hemingway volunteered for the American Red Cross and was an ambulance driver in Italy from May 1918 until he was badly wounded and hospitalised in the July. The book's hero is also an American ambulance driver but serves in the Italian Army, is present during the fighting in parts of Italy and is wounded and taken to hospital, where he meets an English nurse, and part of the novel is about their developing relationship.

The book was first published in serial form in 'Schribner's Magazine' between May and October, 1929, while the entire book was published in September, 1929, and immediately sold very well, becoming Hemingway's best selling book, at least up until that point. 'A Farewell to Arms' was also critically acclaimed and has continued to be popular with, for instance, a Hemingway Library Edition being published in July 2012. It has been adapted into other media versions including a 1930 stage play, a 1932 and a 1957 movie, a 1937 play for radio and a 1966 television miniseries.

The titles given as alternative answers were set in other places. The 1927 short story 'Hills Like White Elephants' describes a conversation between two characters in Spain. The 1937 novel 'To Have and Have Not' centres on a US fishing boat captain while the 1952 novella 'The Old Man and the Sea' is about a senior fisherman.

Answer: Billy Don't Be a Hero

The song 'Billy Don't Be a Hero' tells of how a man joins an army and goes away to fight in a war. His fiancee tells him not to be a hero but to be careful and come back to marry her. The soldier nevertheless volunteers for a mission and is killed then his fiancee receives a letter from the army telling her he died a hero and she throws the letter away. The song descibes the soldiers as 'blues' and it has been speculated that this could suggest Union soldiers in the American Civil War. However the song does not specify which real or fictional war is taking place.

The song was written by English song-writers Mitch Murray and Peter Callander, who had already co-written a few other successful songs. They chose the English group Paper Lace to record it and Murray and Callander were the producers and the song was released in early 1974. This version by Paper Lace reached number one in the UK singles chart in March 1974 and was also number one in Ireland and Australia but it only went to number 96 in the US Billboard chart. The American group Bo Donaldson and The Heywoods recorded the song very soon after Paper Lace did and their version went to number one in the US chart in June 1974 and was awarded a gold disc for selling over three and a half million copies. Billboard ranked 'Billy Don't Be a Hero' the number twenty-one song of 1974.

'When Johnny Comes Marching Home' was published in 1863 and in it the singer looks forward to a soldier's return home from the American Civil War. Paper Lace sang both the 1972 song 'Martha (Whatever Happened)' about regrets for past times and the 1974 song 'The Night Chicago Died' about a battle between gangsters and police in that city.

Answer: The War of the Worlds

H G Wells 1898 book 'The War of the Worlds' tells of the invasion of Southern England by hostile Martians who intend to take over the planet. They use very tall fighting machines firing poisonous gas and heat rays to kill humans and destroy towns. Humans are forced to flee or hide as the Martians are extremely hard to overcome but eventually the invaders are killed by earthly germs, to which they have no resistance. The book has been adapted into movies, television shows and radio plays over the years.

Among the radio versions was a broadcast on 30th October, 1938, by the WABC radio station of The Mercury Theatre on the Air's adaptation, which was also transmitted by Columbia's nationwide broadcasting service. It was narrated by the actor Orson Welles, who also directed the production, most of which consisted of a series of (fake) news reports interrupting a music programme. There were announcements before and after the broadcast stating that it was all a play but it was later suggested that some of the millions of listeners missed these. According to peoples' own reports at the time, a number of them believed that the supposed invasion of New York and New Jersey by Martians was real and were genuinely frightened. Some listeners tried to protect themselves from the supposed poisonous gas and a few needed hospital treatment for shock. Other listeners even tried to flee the cities, so causing traffic jams, at least according to newspapers such as the New York Times and New York Post of 31st October, 1938.

The titles given as alternative answers were also all written by H G Wells with the 1895 'The Time Machine' depicting an inventor travelling into the future via a machine he invented. Also published in 1895 was 'The Wonderful Visit', which is about the short visit by a type of angel to Earth, while the 1933 'The Shape of Things to Come' concerns a future society that evolves after a major war has caused great devastation.

Answer: Band of Brothers

'Band of Brothers' was a series with ten episodes that were first shown on Home Box Office between 9th September and 4th November, 2001. It followed the soldiers of Easy Company from their initial training to being parachuted into Normandy on D-Day and then fighting across Europe until they entered Hitler's retreat in the Bavarian mountains. The series had a very large cast of actors, and among the producers were Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, the latter of whom also co-directed and co-wrote the series. The series was predominantly filmed in England and the British Broadcasting Company co-financed the production of the series and also first showed it on UK television between 14th September and 9th November, 2001.

Although 'Band of Brothers' was a dramatised account and as such involved some literary license, it was based on the experiences of the real Easy Company members and reflected what actually happened to them. The inspiration for the series was a 1992 non-fiction book by Stephen E Ambrose with the title 'Band of Brothers' and the subtitle 'E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne: From Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest' which recounted the recollections of veterans of the real company. This was supplemented by further research, including interviews and consultations with the surviving veterans. The series had high viewing figures, was critically acclaimed and was nominated for a number of awards, some of which it won.

All of the alternative answers are the names of television series set during the Second World War. 'Secret Army', first shown between 1977 and 1979, was about members of the Belgian Resistance who helped shot-down airmen to escape to Britain. 'Hogan's Heroes', first shown between 1965 and 1971, was a sitcom about Allied prisoners in a German prisoner-of-war camp and 'The Heroes', first shown in 1989, was a mini-series concerning a raid by mainly Australian soldiers on Singapore harbour to destroy Japanese shipping there.

Answer: Foxhole

'Foxhole' is a multiplayer action-strategy online video game in which a large number of players can interact with each other via the characters they are controlling. The setting is fictional but is based on those of early twentieth century wars and in the game a player becomes a soldier in one of the game's two opposing factions, the Colonials or the Wardens, who are engaged in a permanent war. A soldier can carry out a number of different tasks in their faction to help in building up their own bases and capturing the enemy ones to try and eliminate the enemy.

The game was developed by Clapfoot Inc, a Canadian company now renamed Siege Camp, who also published 'Foxhole'. Prototype smaller games were released for testing purposes during development from 2016 onwards and the full version was released on Windows in September 2022. The game has sold well since its full release and hundreds or even thousands of players can take part in a game with games sometimes lasting for quite possibly weeks in real time.

The word 'foxhole' is believed to come from the Old English word 'fox-hol', meaning a fox's den. It seems to have been used since the early twentieth century for a hole in the ground large enough to shelter perhaps a couple of soldiers from enemy bombardments and fire. An early record of the word being used in this context is in a First World War 1918 US Army report. Such holes are mainly dug by soldiers but holes caused by damage from previous bombardments can be used as foxholes too. I invented the names of the alternative answers.

Answer: Platoon

Oliver Stone wrote the fictional 1986 movie, 'Platoon', as a result of his own experiences while serving in the US army in Vietnam. The central figure is a volunteer soldier played by Charlie Sheen and the movie follows him from his arrival at the platoon's base in Vietnam to his departure for the US again because he was wounded twice. It shows him going through some traumatic experiences while in Vietnam and how these experiences changed him from the person he was before. The movie also starred Tom Berenger and Willem Dafoe, was produced by Arnold Kopelson and directed by Oliver Stone.

In its seventh weekend of release in the US, 'Platoon' became that weekend's highest grossing movie there and it stayed in this position for four weekends. As well as thus being a financial success, the movie was also well received by critics with, for instance, respected critic Roger Ebert giving it four out of four stars and naming it the year's best movie. It was awarded the 1987 Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Director as well as gaining other awards. 'Platoon' was later successfully released in other countries too, including the UK and the Philippines in early 1987.

All the movies given as answers were directed by Oliver Stone but only 'Platoon' is set in the Vietnam War. Of the others, the 1994 'Natural Born Killers' features a couple who become mass murderers, the 2004 'Alexander' is about the historic Macedonian king Alexander the Great and the 2012 'Savages' concerns two manufacturers of illegal drugs.

Answer: War and Peace

The 1869 book 'War and Peace' was written by Leo Tolstoy and is set before and during the 1812 French invasion of Russia and after the French had retreated again. The story is about some real and fictional participants in the war and the book includes some major battles in Russia and other countries. It is also about how some fictional Russian aristocratic families are affected by the invasion and about their domestic lives and the interactions between some of their members. Especially the later part of the book also includes discussions about philosophy and history. The book was first written in serial form in the earlier 1860s but it was heavily revised by Tolstoy before publication in book form in 1869, when it received an overall favourable reception in Russia.

Over the years 'War and Peace' has been adapted into a number of movies and television series, all with the same title as the book. The first of the movies to be made was a Russian silent movie released in 1915. Among others, an epic American movie was released in 1956 and the actress Audrey Hepburn was nominated for awards for her role in this, while an acclaimed Russian set of four movies was released in 1966 and 1967. Productions for television include a 20-episode serial in 1972 and a six-episode one in 2016, both by the British Broadcasting Corporation, and a four-part French-Italian series in 2007.

Both the 1863 book 'The Cossacks' and the 1878 'Anna Karenina' were also written by Tolstoy and set in Russia but during different historical periods. The 1813 'Pride and Prejudice' was set in England and written by Jane Austen but, like 'War and Peace', took place in the time of war with Napoleon's forces.