[Bananafish] Roots of the ever ...

[Christopher Kubica]

This really means nothing without sources.

-- 
CDMK


> From: Kenneth <kenny2 at verizon.net>
> Reply-To: bananafish list <bananafish at lists.bway.net>
> Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2007 15:24:34 -0500
> To: <bananafish at lists.bway.net>
> Subject: Re: [Bananafish] Roots of the ever ...
> 
> Related or not, I'm going to tell you an agonizing story. It recounts events
> far less uplifting than bathroom diary entries and far blacker than the
> wings of seraphim. Personally, I believe that such accounts (if not this one
> in particular) may have everything to do with Salinger writing
> "Bananafish" - or at least lends a fascinating dimension to the
> possibilities involved.
> Three days after D-Day, Salinger experienced his first true taste of combat.
> His Regiment had been lured into an intractable position by the Germans,
> wedged between an enemy strongpoint at the village of Émondeville and the
> guns of the fortress of Azeville. Here, the Germans bombarded them on two
> sides. Salinger found himself on his belly, his Company pinned down before
> Émondeville where they were outnumbered two-to-one (Salinger's estimate is
> actually higher). Under relentless machine gun and mortar fire, desperate
> and unable to withdraw, the soldiers were forced to rush the German defenses
> regardless of the odds. They were, of course, cut down each time. After
> scrambling to collect the dead and wounded, they would storm the position
> yet again, only to gain a few miserable feet at terrible cost. For over two
> days and nights, Salinger's Company repeatedly hurled themselves against the
> enemy until the Germans silently withdrew.
> This is the battle that Salinger details in his story, "The Magic Foxhole."
> It welded the men of his Regiment and Company together as a brotherhood. It
> was baptism by fire. The daily regimental report reveals the magnitude of
> the slaughter. They had lost three hundred men. The Regiment had sacrificed
> one in ten of their own to take a village whose entire population numbered
> less than a hundred. Again Salinger's numbers for his Company are far
> higher.
> All this is prelude to my point, which I offer here for the only time. I
> will never publish my findings and will deny its validity like hell if ever
> pressed.
> After the carnage, Salinger proceeded noth toward Montebourg. But his
> Company was determined to track down the Germans who had fled Émondeville.
> Entering the village of .Joganville the following day, they captured a large
> number of German soldiers who they found in dissarray. Convinced that these
> were the same soldiers who had tortured them at Émondeville, the Company
> exacted a ferocious revenge. They executed the Germans to the last man.
> A letter written by Salinger two days later shows him broken.
> 
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