Screaming Eagles

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The Front series came to life after a convention, back in May of 2015, when Craig DiLouie and I were enjoying a few libations. We’d been attending Crypticon Seattle and began to discuss the future of the zombie genre. Our talk soon turned to creating something World War II era since we were both interested in that time period as well as the millions of brave men and women who fought and gave their lives in the war.

We approached David Moody and asked him to join our project as the third author. We fully expected him to shoot us down but much to our delight he said yes. THE FRONT will span six books with us alternating authors. David Moody will write the second novel: SCREAMING EAGLES. Craig DiLouie will write the third volume titled BERLIN OR BUST.

The first book was the result of months of studying source material. While I have tried to keep events historically accurate I did have to change a few things to make everything work.

In THE FRONT I’ve written an homage to one of the most decorated platoons of World War 2. On December 16th, 1944, the 18 men of the 99th’s Intelligence and Recognizance Infantry Division, faced a force of over 500 German paratroopers. They managed to hold a hill that overlooked the village of Lanzareth (not Longvilly as I wrote in the book) for 10 hours.

They were commanded by a 20-year-old Lieutenant named Lyle Bouck. The amazing part was that the entire group of men were green and yet they delayed the German advance by up to 20 hours despite begging for artillery support and being told they were “seeing things”.

The 99th had no artillery support with the exception of a 60mm mortar despite repeated calls for help. At full strength the company numbered 22 men with the mortar (a late arrival on the morning of the attack). They suffered only minimal losses. One of the mortar team members was struck and died. They had almost no medical supplies and no morphine.

During the battle, one of the men, Private Louis Kalil, was hit in the face by a rifle grenade. Luckily it didn’t detonate. Kalil later said that he could feel his teeth embedded in the roof of his mouth and tongue. His face was fractured in 3 places.

He fought on throughout the rest of the day.

The idea that a force of over 200,000 German troops were staging an offensive through the Ardennes forest was too lubricious for the allied command to believe and they were slow to respond. Making matters worse, Hitler picked a time when there was bad weather and there was massive fog. This grounded the superior Allied air cover and left a corridor for the Germans to attack through. As they advanced, the Allied lines “bulged” outward as they tried to keep from getting flanked.

The men of the 99th were eventually taken prisoner of war. The platoon was at one point lined up against a wall and thought they were going to be executed by the Germans. An officer intervened at the last minute and the men were spared. Most sat out the rest of the war in POW camps.

It was not until 1981 that this platoon received the recognition they deserved and were awarded the Presidential Unit Citation for extraordinary heroism.

While THE FRONT is a fictional story that involves real world events with zombies, I can’t ever say enough about the brave soldiers who fought in World War II.

I relied on a large number of history books for this novel and I encourage you to seek some of them out if you are interested in The Battle of the Bulge.

Source Material:

• The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945 by Rick Atkinson

• The Battered Bastards of Bastogne – George Koskimaki

• Company Commander: The Classic Infantry Memoir of WWII – Charles B. MacDonald

• Snow and Steel: The Battle of the Bulge, 1944-45 – Peter Caddick-Adams

• The Longest Winter: The Battle of the Bulge and the Epic Story of World War II’s Most Decorated Platoon – Alex Kershaw

Documentaries and movies:

• The War – A Film by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick

• The World at War series

• The Winning of World War II: Road to Victory

• Band of Brothers

• Saving Private Ryan

• Battle of the Bulge

• The Longest Day