AUTHOR’S NOTE
Though not based on the Korean War, or World War II, some of the events in this novel were inspired by both. In particular, the nature of the wintry battles in which Santana and his company take part would be recognizable to any of the marines who fought in the Chosin Reservoir campaign in 1950, except that what they managed to accomplish was far more heroic than anything in this book. Because in Korea, some 12,000 leathernecks were surrounded by 60,000 Chinese soldiers north of the Yalu River, yet still managed to fi?ght their way out of the wintry mountains, taking their dead and wounded with them. For those who would like to read more about that campaign, I recommend Breakout by Martin Russ. By the same token, those familiar with the Battle of Dunkirk in World War II will recognize the evacuation of planet Gamma-014 as being very similar to the effort by roughly 700 privately owned fi?shing boats, yachts, and other vessels to remove some 338,000 Allied soldiers from the beaches of Dunkirk in a period of just nine days. Sadly, more than 30,000 British troops were killed, more than 8,000 went missing, and 1,212,000 Dutch, Belgian, French, and British soldiers were taken prisoner by the Germans, who lost 10,000 soldiers during the battle. These were real battles, involving real men and women, to whom all Americans owe so much. Their courage astounds me.