Brotherhood of War (novel Series) - Inconsistencies and Historical Integration

Inconsistencies and Historical Integration

• One minor point is that when receiving landing instructions, winds are often reported as "negligible" The correct terms would be "calm" or "light and variable". Also in The Majors clearance to land on "Runway 45" is given. Runways cannot have a number higher than "36" for a heading of 360 degrees is the highest possible.

• Another minor point is the repeated reference to the "Expert Combat Infantryman Badge" where no such award exists. The Army awards the Combat Infantryman Badge or the Expert Infantryman Badge.

• In The Lieutenants Stalag XVII-B is erroneously located some 5 miles south of Szczecin (today it is a Polish city) and another erroneous reference as to the camp was located in a former Cavalry barracks from the Polish Army (before WWII Szczecin was part of Germany so there was no Cavalry barracks of the Polish Army near the city). The real location of Stalag XVII-B was not in Pomerania as described in the book. Among other mistakes when using German phrases and abbreviations Griffin took the wrong denomination for the mentioned POW camp. Stalag is an abbreviation for Stammlager referring to camps for enlisted personnel. Officers were imprisoned in an Offlag (abbreviation for Offizierslager).

• The operation to free American officers from their new Soviet captors described in The Lieutenants is obviously informally based on the failed Task Force Baum set up by U.S. Army General George S. Patton and commanded by Capt. Abraham Baum in late March 1945.

• WWII commanding General Porky Waterford who commissioned Craig W. Lowell in The Lieutenants was modelled using character traits of George S. Patton.

• In The Lieutenants Lowell is evacuated from Greece in a British "Sutherland" "seaplane". Presumably this is meant to be a Sunderland flying boat.

• In The Lieutenants MacMillan in the spring of 1945 escapes via "neutral port" of Odessa on the Black Sea to Cairo, Egypt and subsequently to US. However, Odessa was liberated by Soviet Army 3rd Ukrainian Front on April 10, 1944. In 1945 Odessa was under Soviet rule and thus couldn't be "neutral".

• In "The Captains", General MacArthur is mentioned as having received the Medal of Honor during the First World War. He did however not receive it until 1942 at the direction of General George C. Marshall, for his leadership in the defense of the Philippines

• In Special Ops the C-46 transport aircraft operated by "Air Simba" in the Congo is mentioned as a "Boeing C-46," actually, it was manufactured by Curtiss-Wright. Also in this book there is a reference to "T-18" engine test run-ups keeping Jack awake. This should read "T-28" and in one of the mass of messages near the end of the book Cecelia Taylor's signature block reads: "C.R. Taylor Station Chief Buenos Aires" when it should read "... Station Chief Leopoldville" then, further on, there are messages with "C.B. Taylor as the signature slug.

• Originally, there would have been no novels written after The Generals, as the book closed with an epilogue of each officer's and character's career. This was skillfully pushed aside, however, in the three novels written after The Generals. However these three books were set before the last book.

• Griffin's books frequently suffer from inconsistencies in character names and historical references. For example, in The Lieutenants, the Bellmons' daughter is referred to as "Eleanor", however, she is called "Marjorie" in the remaining books. Similarly, in The Lieutenants, the Bellmon family owns a farm in Virginia, but in later books in the series the farm is described as being owned for generations by the Waterford family (Bellmon's in-laws). This may not be an inconsistency however, as it is assumed the Bellmon inherited the estate with the passing of his father-in-law, General Waterford. While "Scotty" Laird (The Majors) is mentioned as the namesake of the airfield at Ft. Rucker following his crash at the controls of his H-13, a later book makes reference to the same helicopter crash naming the real General Bogardus S. Cairns, after whom the Ft. Rucker airfield is named. Cairns died in an H-13 Sioux crash 9 December 1958.

• In this series of books, Griffin incorporates many of his own experiences from his service in the U.S. Army and captures some of the critical and little-known episodes in the evolution of new branches of arms, such as Special Forces and Airmobile Operations. In the afterword of The Aviators he pays tribute to a long-time friend (Col. Clifford Merritt Walker, Jr.) whose exploits as a Huey pilot in Vietnam served as the inspiration for the events surrounding Capt. John Oliver's award of the Combat Infantryman's Badge.

• The successful prison camp rescue mission is based on Operation Ivory Coast in which a rescue of American POWs was attempted at Sơn Tây prison camp on 21 November 1970. The mission, while a tactical success, failed due to the prisoners having been moved to another camp several months prior to the operation. Over-compartmentalization in keeping the effort secret caused this information from reaching the units involved.

• The epilogue of The Generals states that Roxie MacMillan attempted to return her husband's medals to the government after President Jimmy Carter offered amnesty to all Vietnam-era draft dodgers, but fails to point out that Carter, a Democrat, was simply expanding an initiative begun by his predecessor, Gerald Ford, who was a Republican.