The Eleventh Man (52 page)

The Office of War Information from 1942 until 1945 had various sections involved in war news for domestic consumption, but the Threshold Press War Project, "Tepee Weepy," was foisted on it by my imagination.

In my characters' combat experiences, I have sometimes drawn on oral history accounts, memoirs, and unit histories for touches of detail. One source in particular I would like to single out, my late writing colleague and friend, Alvin Josephy. When we coincided at the Fishtrap "Writing and the West" Conference at Wallowa Lake, Oregon, in 1994, I heard Alvin's recording of the amphibious landing at Guam, and his memoir
A Walk Toward Oregon
has a further account of his wading the bullet-pocked surf with that microphone as a Marine combat correspondent. Ben Reinking's narration and specific experiences of the Guam invasion are invented by me, but the spirit of Alvin Josephy surely goes ashore with him. As to a few other military instances of where actuality leaves off and the author begins:

—Many Montana soldiers did serve in the long and terrible jungle fighting in New Guinea, Biak, and the Philippines. The Montaneers regiment that held Carl Friessen, Dexter Cariston, and Dan Standish is my own version of such a unit.

—The U.S. Coast Guard in the middle years of the war did patrol the Olympic Peninsula coastline with dogs. The balloon bombs launched by Japan occurred a bit later in the war than I have portrayed; the first of the 32-foot balloons with an incendiary device was reported in November 1944, and across the remainder of the war an estimated one thousand of nine thousand launched may have reached the American mainland. At least six persons were killed, although I know of no instance of a Coast Guardsman encountering a balloon bomb as Sig Prokosch did.

—Antwerp in the last autumn and winter of the war did suffer attacks of a severity reminiscent of the Luftwaffe's earlier bombing blitz of London: more than five thousand buzz bombs were launched against the Belgian city and its strategic port in 154 days. The casualty figures are given as 3,752 civilians and 731 Allied servicemen killed. Behind a screen of heavy news censorship, a combined Allied anti-aircraft artillery command of 22,000 personnel was deployed against the V-1, and later V-2, flying bombs.

In this novel's inflections of life in uniform, certain phrasing and observations are drawn from my own military experience as an Air Force reservist on active duty during the Cuban missile crisis.

Lastly, a considerable community of friends, acquaintances, and research institutions provided me information, advice, or other aid, and I deeply thank them all: the University of Washington libraries, and Sandra Kroupa, Book Arts and Rare Book curator; the Coast Guard Museum of the Northwest, and director Gene Davis; the Montana Historical Society, and Molly Kruckenberg, Brian Shovers, Lory Morrow, Becca Kohl, Jodie Foley, Ellie Arguimbau, Zoe Ann Stoltz, Rich Aarstad, Karen Bjork; Marcella Walter, for shelter, conversation, and half the laughing again; the University of Montana library, and archivist Donna Macrae; the Great Falls Public Library; Curt Shannon, director of the Malmstrom AFB Museum; Judy Ellinghausen, archives administrator of the High Plains Heritage Center; Christine Morris, executive director of the Cascade County Historical Society; Les Nilson; Bradley Hamlett for providing me with his memoir of missions against the bridge on the River Kwai,
Bombing the Death Railroad;
Wayne and Genise Arnst, for hospitality and friendship as ever; Jean Roden, and John Roden for advice on flying and parachuting; Diane Josephy Peavey; Betty Mayfield, super-librarian and savvy friend; Paul G. Allen's Flying Heritage Collection, for letting me hang around its World War Two planes; Rex Smith; Laurie Brown, David Hough, Linda Lockowitz, and Tom Bouman, for their customary literary wizardry; Liz Darhansoff, for magic in the clauses; and my wife, Carol, first reader for the dozenth time.