He accompanied Allied troops on their invasion of Sicily, survived four airplane crashes, and was commended by the Secretary of the Navy for his role in helping evacuate wounded soldiers from Guadalcanal. After the war, during the winter of 1945–46, Hersey was in Japan, reporting for "The New Yorker" on the reconstruction of the devastated country, when he found a document written by a Jesuit missionary who had survived the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The journalist visited the missionary, who introduced him to other survivors. Soon afterward John Hersey began discussions with William Shawn, an editor for "The New Yorker", about a lengthy piece on the previous summer's bombing. Hersey proposed a story that would convey the cataclysmic narrative through individuals who survived. May 1946, Hersey traveled to Japan, where he spent three weeks doing research and interviewing survivors. He returned to America during late June and began writing the stories of six Hiroshima survivors: a German Jesuit priest, a widowed seamstress, two doctors, a minister, and a young woman who worked in a factory. The resulting piece was his most notable work, the 31,000-word article "Hiroshima", which was published in the August 31, 1946, issue of "The New Yorker". The story dealt with the atomic bomb dropped on that Japanese city on August 6, 1945, and its effects on the six Japanese citizens. The article occupied almost the entire issue of the magazine – something "The New Yorker" had never done before. Hersey himself often decried the New Journalism, which in many ways he had helped create. He would have probably disagreed with a description of his article on the effects of the atomic bomb as New Journalism. Later, the ascetic Hersey came to feel that some elements of the New Journalism of the 1970s were not rigorous enough about fact and reporting. After publication of "Hiroshima", Hersey noted that "the important 'flashes' and 'bulletins' are already forgotten by the time yesterday morning's paper is used to line the trash can. The things we remember are emotions and impressions and illusions and images and characters: the elements of fiction." Shortly before writing "Hiroshima", Hersey published his novel "Of Men and War", an account of war stories seen through the eyes of soldiers rather than a war correspondent. One of the stories in Hersey's novel was inspired by President John F. Kennedy and the PT-109. Soon afterward, the former war correspondent began publishing mostly fiction.