Many of the authors that served in various real-life wars (and survived) wrote stories that are at least somewhat based on their own experiences. Some of them are outright memoirs or fictionalized accounts of their exploits.
- J. G. Ballard, interned boy in a Shanghai (Empire of the Sun)
- Pierre Boulle, in British Special Forces (Bridge on the River Kwai)
- Samuel Fuller – (The Big Red One)
- Sven Hassel, Danish-born penal regiment soldier
- Joseph Heller, served in 12th Air Force (Catch-22)
- Alistair MacLean, in the Royal Navy (H.M.S. Ulysses)
- Norman Mailer, served in South Pacific (The Naked and the Dead)
- Harry Martinson, Swedish volunteer in Winter War (Verklighet Till Döds)
- John Masters Gurkha officer, served in North Africa and Burma with the Chindits (Bhowani Junction, The Road Past Mandalay)
- Leon Uris, in United States Marine Corps (Battle Cry)
- Gore Vidal, in US Army (Williwaw)
- Kurt Vonnegut, US infantry soldier, survived bombing of Dresden as a POW (Slaughterhouse Five)
- Evelyn Waugh, in Royal Marines, later Royal Horse Guards served in Crete and Yugoslavia (Men at Arms, The End of the Battle)
