Walter M. Miller Jr served as a radio operator and gunner in the US Army Air Corps during the Second World War. He was involved in the assault on the Benedictine abbey at Monte Cassino, the experience of which later led him to write his classic SF novel A Canticle For Leibowitz. Walter M. Miller Jr died in 2006.

Miller's 1959 novel follows the Monks of the Order of St. Leibowitz as they attempt to preserve the remnants of civilization after a nuclear war.