author
Arch Alfred McKillen
b. 1914
A World War II Navy veteran, he wrote poetry shaped by firsthand experience of war, loss, and survival. His best-known collection brings a personal, reflective voice to events of the era.
1 Audiobook
The Death of the Scharnhorst, and Other Poems
by Arch Alfred McKillen
About the author
Born in 1914, Arch Alfred McKillen was an American poet best known for The Death of the Scharnhorst, and Other Poems, published in 1952. Library and ebook records confirm his name, birth year, and the publication of this collection.
Reliable author notes also describe him as a U.S. Navy veteran who was stationed aboard the USS Tennessee at Pearl Harbor during the attack on December 7, 1941. That background helps explain why his poetry returns so often to war, memory, and grief.
McKillen appears to have published only a small body of work that remains known today mainly through public-domain and library archives. Even so, his poems still stand out for their directness and for the sense that they were written by someone who had lived through the history he described.