Stronger Than Fear

"'Bravery and honor and decency cannot and will not die' --but it took Paul Krieder a bitter battle with fear before he proved it with the supreme sacrifice...This small book -- no longer than A Walk in the Sun, and with somewhat that same market appeal -- gives one a sense of intimate knowledge of what war is today, in terms of fighting an unseen enemy in devastated towns, where a sniper's bullet may catch the fighting man unaware. It is a story told around a Captain Krieder, winner of the Purple Heart, now finding himself on the jittery edge of collapse when confronted with another day of house to house, street by street, fighting, and the necessity of pushing his platoon over more territory than he had keyed himself to in a German town where the foe had not yet realized how few were the assailants. He found himself hunting excuses to hide -- to take shelter -- to go back to headquarters. But Jerry Bull, one time schoolmate, and now parachuter, steadies him at the exact moment when "battle fatigue" might have proved too great. His innate gallantry won over the urge to return to safety and Suzy and the baby he had not seen -- and he went forward, and won. A holding story of one segment of war that is repeated a thousand times in Europe today. Tregaskis' name will win a very special audience for this." -Kirkus Reviews, 1945.