Arthur Miller? Well, despite the fact that by the time of Pearl Harbour his ambition was already a little engine that knew no rest, he may not have got the chance to serve in a wartime role that he could use to advance his art. Most people who would oneday be famous Americans didn't have particularly eventful military careers if they served in the war. Some, like Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal, got around this by sheer breadth of talent when it came to time to be published. Yet even then their war novels weren't the most significant things in either man's body of work.
I can't help but think that some of the most celebrated US writers made by WWII left pretty thin oeuvres behind. Has anyone ever read anything by Joseph Heller other than 'Catch 22'? Kurt Vonnegut wrote more lasting work than just 'Slaughterhouse 5', though without that great sucess everthing else he wrote might never have made it past the Iowa University Writers' Workshop.