Unknown Soldiers is the story of Clay-

ton, Virginia, a little town gripped by

war fever during the last days of World

War II. Women roll bandages and tend

victory gardens; men save gas coupons

and complain about the O.P.A. Children

brag about fathers and brothers overseas

and long to grow up fast and fight.

In the Duncan Kimball School, the

paper flotilla of battle ships, propelled

by class contributions to the War Bond

Drive, is destroyed. Suspicion falls on

Panimer, an oddly beautiful boy on the

verge of early manhood.

That suspicion, in a climate of war

fever, turns mischief into trouble. In the

throes of his first real love, Panimer

becomes a one-man underground. Once

hero and terror of the schoolyard, he

becomes a joy-rider with stolen gas cou-

pons, and mute during patriotic recita-

tions. He sets off the air-raid siren, and

snoops around the yard of the only man

in Clayton who won t sell his scrap for

the war effort. Silently, the town lines up

against him as he unwittingly leads the

town closer and closer to what it dare

not face-a huge warehouse whose cun-

tents are a mystery.

When the Sons of Clayton munitions

plant explodes, hlinding his mother and

providing the town with its unknown

soldier-a woman no one can identify--

all hell slowly and quietly breaks loose

until Panimer stumbles on the town s

secret--the warehouse-and the greed

and corruption that feed on innocent

patriotism.