Author’s Note for ‘Operation Shatteraxis-A World War Two Thriller’ by C.G. Faulkner
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In writing the Jeff Fortner Trilogy, I knew that I would be going back, one day, to tell the story of his father, Ethan Fortner. In addition to his roles in Jeff’s books, I have already written four tales from his 1930s Great Depression era childhood in Georgia. Now, with OPERATION SHATTERAXIS, I begin the Trilogy of his own adventures as a new soldier in the espionage wars with the Nazis and the Soviets.
Ethan is, by design, a more tragic and flawed character than his son. While Jeff had to grow up without his mother, Ethan had to endure a life without the girl he had loved since childhood. So, he turned to hard drinking, chain smoking, and the rage of combat to bury his sorrows and guilt at having to face life without Jane, and, maintained a conflicted emotional distance from his son, who reminded him of his greatest loss.
I was inspired by several books and films in writing this Second World War adventure, particularly the works of Alistair MacLean, and the movies based on them; ‘Where Eagles Dare’ and ‘The Guns of Navarone’. Those type of ‘secret mission to infiltrate an Axis base’ stories have always been some of my favorites.
There is no record of an actual summit involving all of the Axis Powers during the War. Though Germany, Italy and Japan were allied, the Japanese Pacific Theater of the War was far removed from Europe and Hitler’s focus on domination of that continent.
Except for Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, Chief of the German Armed Forces High Command (and to whom justice was eventually served, at the end of a rope, after the Nuremburg Trails in 1946), the other main characters in the story are all of my own creation.
The distrust amongst the Allied Forces of their Soviet Allies was real, though in this story, taken beyond any events of recorded history. Josef Stalin was a ruthless dictator in the class of Hitler, but the alliance of necessity was required at the time to defeat the Nazi threat. Of course, once Germany was defeated, the West and East turned on each other, and the Cold War began. The prelude to that certainly began during the War, partially over German technology, and who would possess it.
Winston Churchill had contingencies for dealing with a possible conflict with post-War Russia; read about ‘Operation Unthinkable’ for more on that.
Among many of his statements about the Soviet issue, General George S. Patton famously said in 1945: “I have no particular desire to understand them except to ascertain how much lead or iron it takes to kill them… the Russian has no regard for human life and they are all out sons-of-bitches, barbarians, and chronic drunks.”
So, there is an argument to be made that the Cold War really began before the Second World War ended.
This story is from my imagination, and any (unintentional) historical inaccuracies in it, are, I hope, few…but they are the occasional bane of the Historical Adventure Author.
Ethan Fortner will return in the 1950s after the OSS transitions into the CIA, and during the peak of the Red Scare; when there sometimes were communists under every bed…
…and perhaps will cross paths again with a certain KGB Officer, and his ‘Puppetmaster’.
Follow the links below for more reading, including the inspirations from which the underground tunnel system, castle location, and other plot elements were derived …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_1943
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Strategic_Services
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMERSH
https://www.heritagedaily.com/2017/12/10-nazi-bunkers-subterranean-bases/115561
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Riese
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czocha_Castle
https://www.rbth.com/history/328489-german-scientists-who-helped-to-create-soviet-bomb
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Unthinkable
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/history-lesson-the-final-days-general-patton-26305
