Two of the letters to Nagel will be auctioned by Nate D Sanders online auction house over the next two weeks. 'I took my time and tried to make it the best book I could possibly write on that subject at that time.' In the letter he added: 'I knew would be published. Publisher Simon & Schuster granted him a book deal based on the contents of the first chapter. He then spent much of the 1950s writing the book. He flew 60 combat missions as a B25 bombardier.

Army Air Corps in 1942 and then served, just like his book's protagonist, on the Italian front. 'In addition, and this too is hard to get across to college students today, for me and for most others, going into the army resulted immediately in a vast improvement in my standard of living.'Īged 19, Heller joined the U.S. 'I was young, it was adventurous, there was much hoopla and glamour. 'Much differently than Yossarian felt and much differently than I felt when I wrote the novel … In truth I enjoyed it and so did just about everyone else I served with, in training and even in combat. Writing to James Nagel, English professor at Northeastern University in Boston: 'How did I feel about the war when I was in it? In a letter to an academic preparing a collection of essays about his satirical 1961 novel, he wrote that his experience of combat was in direct contrast to his central character of John Yossarian. He may have written one of the anti-conflict classics - but it has now been revealed that Catch-22 author Joseph Heller actually enjoyed his military service during the second world war.

Revelation: In a letter Joseph Heller wrote that his experience of combat was in direct contrast to his central character of John Yossatian, and that he actually enjoyed it

Catch 22 author