YUCCA VALLEY, Calif., Nov. 24, 2003 (PRIMEZONE) -- Of his gritty, provocative new book, Five Marks (now available through 1stBooks), James Jess Hannon writes, "Facts can be soft as picked cotton or granite hard. Still, the truth is indivisible or it is nothing." With this book, he vividly paints a picture of the harsh reality faced by Nazi death camp prisoners during Hitler's reign.
Hannon entered the U.S. Army in May 1942 and was captured in 1944. He was held in Cine Citi, Rome, Latterina and Dachau, Nazi death camps in Munich, Germany and Florence, Italy and, finally, in Oflag 64 in Schubin, Poland. "The word (freedom) is not the private property of any single racial or ethnic group. It is for everyone or it is for no one," he says.
In late May, 1944, they were loaded into boxcars. Nine days later, they were unloaded in Schubin, Poland and herded into Oflag 64, a permanent prison camp for U.S. Army infantry officers. He escaped on Jan. 21, 1945, and made his way across Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary, before he was rescued by General McNarney, commander of the U.S. 12th Air Force in Cluj, Romania.
He was then flown to Naples, Italy, and after lengthy interrogation, boarded a C54, four engine transport and continued on to Washington D.C. What followed was a long series of interviews and interrogations with General George C. Marshall and others. His M.O. was changed to Intelligence, and he boarded a C54 destined for Kumming, China, where he performed missions behind Japanese lines. However, this is another story, he writes.
"Killing could be an occasion to innovate methods that would move the victim to pray for death ... Hold back your distaste ... the act of taking a life could be embellished and the adding of the macabre could shock potential victims into silence," Hannon writes.
Not a read for the faint hearted, Five Marks illustrates an unbelievably disturbing, yet authentic depiction of life experienced by countless unfortunate souls.
"I lived intimately with survivors at a time when passions had not cooled, the hell of genocide still in evidence, the conflict still raging. Count your blessings and remember, though we won the war it was too close for the survivors and too late for the victims," he notes.
Hannon now resides in California.
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