Wandering down this tangent, was that standard military usage back in the 1950’s? Did actual mobile army surgical hospitals in the Korean War use asterisks to abbreviate their names? Or were the asterisks an affectation that was added by Hollywood? I’m checking Hornberger’s book and his title spelled it MASH.
His original novel, absolutely. All of the sequel novels (and I had no idea that there were so many sequels) used the asterisks in the title; they were written after the film used the asterisks, and I would imagine that he adopted that styling to make it clear to book buyers that it was part of the same franchise.
I’ve never read any of them. I have heard they are not exactly brilliant and only one or so of them is written by him despite having his name on them.