The Anatomy of Fear

All combat soldiers have felt it--the nerve-racking, soul-shaking wave of fear that comes with the first real baptism of fire--but few have been able to describe it. One of the best descriptions was recorded this week by Captain Bruce Bliven Jr., in his father's New Republic.

An artillery officer, boyish-looking, 28-year-old Captain Bliven landed in France on D-day with a group consisting mostly of green soldiers who, like himself, "didn't know enough to be adequately frightened."

It was not until the first bombing that he really found out what fear was like. It came in the middle of a bright, moonlit night while Captain Bliven was working in a command tent. When a stick of bombs exploded close enough to shake the tent and rock the lights, the occupants grabbed their helmets and made for the exit. The third series of blasts found Captain Bliven groping through the canvas passageway.

In the Spotlight. "I was fourth or fifth in line, and while I waited to get out I got scared. ... I ran for the trench, feeling as though I were in a huge spotlight and sure that the bombers were watching me, personally. . . .

"Another string of bombs started to whine down. The noise . . . starts high in pitch and slides down the scale. . . . And the longer it whines the closer it seems to get, until you are sure that when it does explode it will be at the back of your head.

"I lay face down in the slit trench with the brim of my helmet in the soft ground, as close to the earth as I could get, and held my breath. . . . When the bombs went off and I realized that I hadn't been hit, I found I couldn't draw a full breath. My chest felt contracted and tight. I was cold. . . ."

Slow, Big Shivers. "Another bomber roared overhead, quite low, and I saw the first string of flares splash into flame; it was dead ahead of me and it looked close enough to touch. I flopped back on the bottom of the trench and began to shake. The whine started again and I thought, 'They are going to get me this time. . . .' I tried to sink my head into my shoulders, turtle fashion, and I closed my eyes. The whine crept down the scale and I shook, not like shivering from cold but slower and bigger. Some of my weight was on my arms and they shook in particular, but the source of the shaking was nowhere and all over; I remember feeling my knees bumping the ground. . . ."

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