author
Samuel Cranston Benson
1884–1948
A pacifist preacher who became an ambulance driver in World War I, he wrote with firsthand urgency about how war can overturn a person's deepest convictions. His work blends memoir, faith, and the shock of modern battle.
1 Audiobook
"Back from hell"
by Samuel Cranston Benson
About the author
Born in 1884 and died in 1948, Samuel Cranston Benson is best remembered for Back from Hell (1918), a World War I memoir. Library of Congress records list the book under his name and dates, and Project Gutenberg describes it as an account of his move from pacifism into wartime service with the American Ambulance Service in France.
Benson’s writing stands out for its personal angle. In Back from Hell, he presents himself as a former pacifist and minister confronting the brutal realities of war at close range. That mix of spiritual background and battlefield experience gives the book much of its force.
Surviving catalog records also connect him with religious and healing-oriented writing, including Bible Healing Prayer Book. Detailed biographical information appears to be limited online, but the available sources consistently show an author whose work joined religious conviction with vivid, first-person testimony from the First World War.