Sy Kahn was born in 1924 in New York City and attended public schools there through high school. He served in the U.S. Army during World War II, studied at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Connecticut, and earned his doctorate in American and English Literature at the University of Wisconsin in 1957.

He taught for thirty-seven years at various colleges and universities in the United States and Europe.
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Sy's published works include poetry, plays, essays and articles, and a unique WW II diary he wrote as a soldier serving in the South Pacific and published over 40 years later. Between Tedium and Terror is widely noted as a real and readable account of the everyday life of a WW II soldier.

His poetry collections include two collaborations with Robert Fossum, Facing Mirrors and Further Reflections and a number of other volumes: A Later Sun, Another Time, Interculture, The Fight Is With Phantoms, Our Separate Darkness, and several others.
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"When Sy Kahn set off to serve in the Pacific during World War II, he was a bookish, naive nineteen-year-old, the youngest in his company. Convinced he would not survive the war, Kahn kept a meticulous record of his experiences as his "foxhole of the mind," even though keeping such a journal was forbidden by military regulations.

Often writing in tents by candlelight, in foxholes, or on board ships, Between Tedium and Terror documents life during four campaigns and over three hundred air attacks." (From the University of Illinois Press website.)
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Photos are plentiful throughout this website. Use this link to find them all. Photos include many family photos as well as photos taken for professional uses. Also here are Sy's World War II snapshots and photos of the same people more than 50 years later.

Includes links to galleries as well as other pages that include photos.
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