A Zombie's History of the United States (21 page)

Captain Zom B had been regular human New York, Italian-American army soldier Zomano Bodelli. After bravely sacrificing himself to save his fellow soldiers by jumping on a German grenade, Bodelli is brought back to life by U.S. Army scientists working in the Phantom Project (as Seidiker called it), becoming Captain Zom B. Now undead, the still highly intelligent Zom B is sent back into duty where he satiates his hunger for human flesh by eating German, Italian, and Japanese soldiers.

Project Phantom was a heavily classified operation. Somehow the Department of War got wind of the comic and contacted CC, who immediately shut down production on the issue before it ever went to print. Seidiker continued writing for Cooper Comics until they went out of business in 1952, though he never managed to come up with a character as original as Captain Zom B. The government confiscated most of the completed artwork, but several copies of the issue’s cover art survived and are now highly sought after by both comic book and zombie memorabilia collectors.

Col. Alan’s Berserker Corps was made up of several platoons (or hordes, as many still called them) of zombies, with the intended purpose that they be deployed behind enemy lines to infest and overwhelm German troops. Technically a battalion in size, the Corps numbered 332 zombies at the onset of the war.

British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain felt that the prospects were too morally questionable and certainly too uncivilized. Much fighting would be done in countries occupied by the Nazis, and innocent people could and likely would become zombinated if zombies were shamelessly plunked onto their land. Even when Winston Churchill became prime minister in 1940, Britain’s attitude stayed the same. Not until the United States officially entered the war in December 1941, following the attack on Pearl Harbor, did the Berserker Corps see their day.

Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, supreme commander of the Allied forces in Europe, had mixed feelings about the Berserker Corps. Eisenhower was raised as a member of the Mennonite sect that would later become the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and remained a religious man all his life. During his presidency in the 1950s, he added the words “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance and adopted “In God We Trust” as the motto of the United States. Zombies were abominations, he knew, yet he also knew that if the zombies could spare human-American lives and help win the war faster, they could be valuable assets.

Eisenhower’s only proviso was that the zombies could not be used in occupied European territories without a suitable escort; the Pacific campaign, however, was fair game, as the Japanese had drawn first blood. Though not widely or too frequently used, the zombie Berserks’s applications were as varied as Col. Alan and the other commanders’ imaginations could muster. They were parachuted into enemy camps, eating and infecting whomever they could; they were strapped with timed explosives and sent shambling into German strongholds; captured zombinated German soldiers were used to clear minefields or draw out sniper fire; and one army squad had a zombie, nicknamed Rover, which they used to sniff out Germans hiding in deserted buildings.

The never-published cover of Cooper Comics’s
Hero Tales
, meant to introduce the undead hero, Captain Zom B, created by Arvin Seidiker.

Alan bragged in a letter to Eisenhower:

The best part is no matter how many we lose, we always end up with more. Renewable soldiers! This is the secret to America’s military dominance.

Alan eventually came up with the twisted but ingenious idea of sending captured zombinated German soldiers back toward the German lines. Seeing the Nazi uniforms, the zombies were allowed to approach until they were close enough that it was too late. German officers, interviewed after the end of the war, spoke about instances where their men had become so paranoid about these zombie decoys that several human German soldiers were accidentally shot when attempting to rejoin their companies. The Nazis were the first Germans to fight zombies since the Hessians, who were employed by King George III during the Revolutionary War.

Somewhat ironically, but not surprisingly, Alan eventually died at the hands of one of his Berserks while trying to affix a bomb to the creature. When the zombie bit Alan, a fellow officer offered to shoot Alan before the zombination occurred, but Alan declined. He requested that once zombinated, he be added to the ranks of the Berserker Corps. His wish was granted. No records were kept of the individual Berserks, but some have said that zombie Alan was part of the horde that was dropped behind the German defenses on Normandy beaches during Operation Overlord (or D-Day).

Zombie American Heroes

I don’t give a damn if they were living, undead, or
something else…every man who set foot on Omaha
Beach was a hero.

—Lt. Gen. Omar Bradley, Commander of the U.S. First Army, 1948

On September 19, 1944, Pvt. “Bullet Proof ” Waldo Barks, a member of the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment working to take the Nijmegen bridge, in the Netherlands, as part of Operation Market Garden (one of the Allies most famous failures), was found limp on the ground after being hit by a German mortar shell. Barks had earned his nickname due to his amazing ability to dodge enemy fire, but it seemed he was not fast enough to escape this time. Unable to find a heartbeat, the army medic attending to Barks was shocked to discover that Barks’s torso was riddled with what looked like bullet holes, yet Barks hadn’t been shot at Nijmegen and none of the wounds were bleeding. He was even more shocked when eventually Barks sat up, apparently having just been knocked out by the explosion’s shock wave. At this point the jig was up: Barks was a Carrie.

Waldo Barks was a construction worker from Sacramento, California, who found himself a hybrid after being bitten in a barroom brawl. Desperate to serve his country, he knew he could never pass the physical, so he bribed his examining doctor with $300. He never hurt a member of his own regiment, fighting off his need to feed by stealing blood bags from the medics, and later eating a couple of German prisoners.

Barks’s situation was not totally uncommon. Most hybrids viewed themselves as patriotic Americans, and many found their way into service either through bribery or lax examination practices. Some recruiters even took what could be called a “don’t ask, don’t tell” approach. If they could control their hunger, hybrids made the ideal soldiers. In fact, four different hybrids were able to conceal their nature long enough to receive the military’s highest decoration, the Medal of Honor. Until now, the full truth behind their achievements has gone untold.

Sgt. Adam Ludsen

October 1, 1944. When Sgt. Ludsen’s company was attempting to reopen supply lines through the Mortagne Forest near St. Die, France, they were greeted by German machine-gun fire. Three of Ludsen’s men were killed and six more wounded. Despite the intense machine-gun fire, Ludsen made a solo charge on the nearest German machine-gun, unstopped even after a grenade blew off his left hand. Ludsen killed the gunner and then without hesitation charged into the vortex of enemy fire and stormed another machine gun, again killing the gunner and forcing the surrender of a supporting infantryman.

The remainder of the German group then concentrated its full force in a desperate effort to kill the seemingly unkillable Ludsen, who proceeded through the woods to find and exterminate five more Germans. Finally, when Ludsen stormed a third machine gun, the remaining German force surrendered, terrified of Ludsen. All told, Ludsen killed nine Germans, removed a specialized German force from the Mortagne Forest, and reopened the supply line.

Cpl. Anthony Risto

February 19, 1945. On the first day of the Battle of Iwo Jima, Cpl. Risto, armed with a homemade .50 caliber machine gun, charged right into the thickest parts of the fray in a drive across the narrowest part of the island, in order to cut off Mount Suribachi. A fellow soldier later recalled:

He stood bolt-upright to draw enemy fire to him and away from those of us who were pinned down, and so he could see the smoke of enemy machine guns and tell where they was. Then he was off
following
, not fleeing, the gunfire all around him, disappearing and reappearing in mortar explosions, sprinting and firing at the Japs face to face. He killed 20 Japs before he ran out of ammo. Then he took off his helmet and boots; said they was slowing him down. He ran back down to the beach to rearm, then ran back and did the same thing all over again. He did this
8 times
, and on every trip back to the beach, he picked up a wounded man and carried him on his shoulders.

Risto destroyed fifteen enemy installations on the first day of action and killed anywhere from forty to sixty Japanese soldiers single-handedly. Joe Rosenthal, who took the iconic flag-raising picture atop Mount Suribachi, said of Risto, “Running through bullets and not getting hit is like running through rain and not getting wet!” But just like Waldo Barks, two weeks later when Risto was terminated by a sniper bullet to the head during a scouting mission, it was discovered that his body was riddled with bullet holes. In keeping with Rosenthal’s analogy, he did indeed get wet.

1st Lt. Nathan Morales

December 27, 1944. While leading his platoon in a savage house-to-house fight through the fortress town of Sigolsheim, France, Morales was hit with a mortar shell, which shredded his left arm and shoulder and destroyed his rifle. He charged alone into the house from which the fire came and killed its two defenders with his knife and teeth. Then he continued leading his platoon in the extremely dangerous task of clearing hostile troops from strong points along the street until he reached a building held by fanatical German troops.

He charged through a hail of direct fire and jumped through a closed window, his body breaking the glass. A frenzied battle ensued, in which Morales killed six more men and had his gut split open by a German’s sword. When Morales calmly grabbed his intestines and tied them around his own waist so that he wouldn’t trip on them, the remaining German soldiers surrendered, in utter terror.

Morales and his men cracked the core of enemy resistance in a vital area, but he was relieved of duty now that his men feared serving with him. Morales was relocated to Project Phantom’s Berserker Corps where he fought valiantly on Betio Island until the Berserks accidentally turned on Allied forces and U.S. soldiers began de-animating them. Morales was lost in the crowd, so to speak, and tragically got a bullet to the brain like all the rest.

Lt. Audie L. Murphy

Standing at only 5 feet 5 inches tall and weighing 110 pounds at his time of enlistment, Murphy was likely World War II’s most famous soldier, earning every major combat award the military has to offer, and later becoming a minor motion picture star.

On August 15, 1944, in Southern France, after a German sniper killed Murphy’s best-friend Lattie Tipton—who Murphy later revealed was himself a hybrid—Murphy charged the machine gun nest where the sniper was hidden and killed six men. Then he picked up the nest’s MG-42 and proceeded to kill ten more German soldiers nearby. For this feat he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.

Then on January 26, 1945, Murphy earned his Medal of Honor in Holtzwihr, France, when he ordered his men to retreat as Germans swarmed the town. Murphy stayed behind and shot the Germans as they emerged from the woods to cross a clearing, until he ran out of ammunition. He then climbed onto a burning tank destroyer and used its machine gun to continue his one-man assault as the German Panzers and mortars exploded the ground around him. He also began calling in air strikes, giving coordinates closer and closer to himself, until he finally called a strike on his exact position. When the confused man on the other end noted, “That’s right on top of you! How close are they!?” Murphy responded, “Hold the phone! I’ll let you talk to them!” as he jumped from the vehicle and ran into the woods while the ground erupted behind him.

The U.S. military estimates that Murphy killed fifty Germans that day. He, of course, declined medical attention afterward, claiming there wasn’t a nick on him. Many military higher-ups were aware that Murphy was a hybrid but looked the other way. Murphy had become a valuable symbol and promotional tool. His book
To Hell and Back—
which became a best seller—originally revealed to the world that Murphy was a Carrie, but his publisher convinced him to omit the information. Murphy married actress Wanda Hendrix in 1949, but she supposedly divorced him upon learning he was a hybrid.