Richard Hornberger; Surgeon Who Wrote ‘MASH’

HIGHTSTOWN, N.J. — Richard Hornberger, whose book “MASH” about his experiences as a war surgeon in Korea was turned into a hit movie and a successful television series, has died. He was 73.

Hornberger, who spent most of his life as a doctor in Maine, had been suffering from leukemia. He died Tuesday in a hospital in Portland, Maine, according to a statement from the Peddie School, a New Jersey prep school he attended.

The book was published in 1968 under the pseudonym Richard Hooker. Its central character was Hawkeye Pierce, whom Hornberger said he modeled after himself--an irreverent, wise-cracking surgeon with a passion for Maine and golf who served in the Mobile Army Surgical Hospital.

In an interview last year, Hornberger said he couldn’t understand why the film and TV series were seized on for antiwar themes during the Vietnam War. “I intended no messages in the book,” he said.