A Mortal Terror (43 page)

“Very well, Herr Mueller. We will attend to your arm, and find a more suitable identity for you. I take it you do not care how we do so?”

“God’s honest truth, I don’t give a damn.”

Author’s Note

Kurt Gerstein, as described by Diana Seaton in Chapter Two, is a real historical figure. As a witness to the gassing at Belzec, he alerted as many religious leaders and foreign diplomats as he could, unfortunately to little effect. Gerstein surrendered to the Allies at the end of the war in 1945, and was initially treated well by his French captors, who allowed him to reside in a hotel in order to write up what became known as the Gerstein Report, documenting his wartime activities. However, he was subsequently transferred to a prison in France and treated as a war criminal. In July 1945, he was found dead in his cell. Whether it was suicide or murder by members of the SS to keep him quiet has never been determined.

Witold Pilecki, whom Kaz describes in Chapter Nineteen, was also a real person. A Polish Army officer, Pilecki deliberately allowed himself to be picked up in a Nazi roundup, knowing he would be sent to Auschwitz. In 1940, he began to smuggle out reports to the Polish Underground. Finally, in 1943, he escaped from Auschwitz and wrote a detailed report on the exterminations being carried out. The report was sent to London by the Underground, which requested arms and assistance for an assault on Auschwitz. The report was either disbelieved or ignored, and nothing was done. After the war, Witold Pilecki resisted the Soviets with as much fervor as he did the Nazis. He began to collect information on Soviet atrocities and executions of former Underground members. In 1948, he was arrested, and after a show trial by the Communist government of Poland, executed.

It was during World War II that the term “thousand-yard stare” was coined. It referred to the unfocused gaze of a battle-weary soldier, who appeared to be looking through the observer to some distant image. During World War II, 1.3 million soldiers were treated for what was then known as battle or combat fatigue, and it is estimated that up to 40 percent of medical discharges were for psychiatric reasons.

Although much had been learned about shell shock—as it was called—during the First World War, the U.S. Army forgot many of those lessons and had to relearn them in the Second World War. In the Mediterranean Theater of Operations, it was not until March 1944 (after the events described in this book) that a psychiatrist was added to the medical staff of each combat division. The term “exhaustion” was used to describe conditions that came to be known as combat or battle fatigue, or later, combat stress reaction, and now post-traumatic stress disorder.

Old Sergeant’s Syndrome, as described in this novel, is an actual condition defined by the U.S. Army Medical Department during the Second World War. The syndrome was described in 1949 by Major Raymond Sobel, U.S. Army Medical Corps, in his article
Anxiety-Depressive Reactions After Prolonged Combat Experience—the “Old Sergeant Syndrome”
(
U.S. Army Medical Dept. Bulletin
, 1949, Nov. 9, Suppl.: 137–146).

In a study of men who had broken down in combat, the authors stated that the “question was not, ‘Why did they break?’, but ‘Why did they continue to endure?’” It was in this study that the calculation was made that if left in combat for prolonged periods, 98 percent of soldiers would suffer from symptoms of combat fatigue. The remaining 2 percent would undoubtedly be sociopaths. For details, see: Swank, R. L., and Marchand, W. E. (1946).
Combat Neuroses: Development of Combat Exhaustion. Archives of Neurology and Psychology.

Audie Murphy makes a brief cameo appearance in this story. Murphy, at seventeen, lied about his age to join the service, and became the most decorated American soldier of the war. Murphy was at Anzio, where he suffered a recurrence of malaria, which is what brought him to Hell’s Half Acre. After the war, Murphy suffered from severe depression and insomnia, stating that he remembered the war “as I do a nightmare. A demon seemed to have entered my body.”

Murphy became addicted to sleeping pills, which he took to overcome his insomnia. To break himself from their grip, he locked himself in a motel room for a week. After that, he broke what had been a taboo about public discussion of combat fatigue, and became a dedicated spokesperson for veterans, urging the government to provide greater support and to increase the understanding of the emotional impact of combat experiences.

The battle for the Anzio Beachhead is still a matter of debate among military historians. Winston Churchill famously remarked that he “had hoped that we were hurling a wildcat onto the shore, but all we got was a stranded whale.” General John Lucas was relieved of his command after a month, and it was not until three months later that Allied divisions finally broke out of the encircled beachhead. What could Lucas have done differently? He knew his forces were inadequate and his orders muddled at best. This was a recipe for disaster, but Lucas went along with an operation he felt was doomed, even as his forces were diminished from the original planned allocations. To be fair to his reputation, many veterans of Anzio say they owe their lives to his caution, and that a more aggressive general might have gambled all and lost.