“Unexplained” mysteries are intriguing to read, but compilations of such may exaggerate mystery by omitting facts. It is certainly easier to present some supposed enigma than to try to explain it. Here are three short cases from World War II that readers may enjoy trying to solve, together with my proposed solutions. (One is a poignant case from my own family.)
Premonition of General Mark Clark
At daylight on January 28, 1944, American Lieutenant General Mark Clark—leader of the Fifth Army—climbed aboard a PT boat. With his aide, other army officers, and a war correspondent, Clark rode out on western Italy’s Tyrrhenian Sea, along with those on another PT boat. Little did anyone know that something astonishing was about to happen.
Just three days before, a force of British and American men had stormed ashore at the beachhead at Anzio, sixty miles behind a fortified German line running across the country’s narrow waist. Now, suddenly, the two PT boats were challenged—not by the enemy’s equivalent craft but by an American minesweeper! Urgently, one of the PT skippers ordered the firing of green and yellow flares, using the boat’s flasher to send the designated “friendly-craft” signal.
At this moment, General Mark Clark stood up from his customary seat: a stool placed where the boat’s bridge shielded it from chilling wind. He would later assert, “Something told me” to get up and head toward the boat’s front. Only moments after he stepped away, an artillery shell from the minesweeper hit the wooden stool and blasted it “into kindling” (Yarborough 1994, 187). Crewmen were knocked down, two were killed, and the PT skipper and three others were wounded. Clark picked up the flare pistol and fired a friendly-fire signal, but the minesweeper responded with another shelling.
A wounded crewman quickly turned the boat around and with the other boat, which escaped injury, retreated back southward. The dead and injured were transferred to another ship, and Clark went with the undamaged PT boat to look for the offending minesweeper. Berating that boat’s captain with a megaphone, the skipper cursed him for killing and wounding five men. At this, the repentant minesweeper captain apologized profusely, pleading that “The rays of the early morning sun made it impossible for us to recognize your signals” (Yarborough 1994, 188). Such was the cause of that “friendly-fire” encounter.
Left “unexplained,” however, was the astonishing incident of General Clark’s alleged premonition. Before you read further, what can we make of the story from a rational perspective?
As discussed in an overview of premonitions I wrote for Skeptical Inquirer magazine, there are various possibilities for “Something told me” narratives. For example, a given case may be due to retrofitting (after-the-fact matching). That is, once an event has occurred, details may be interpreted in various ways to better harmonize the prediction (or predictive feeling) with the event (Nickell 2019).
In the case of General Clark, there was a very obvious reason for his having gotten up when he did and heading toward the front of the boat: the impulse to see what was happening; after all, he was the man in charge. I submit that that impulse was the “something” that supposedly motivated him to move away from the spot that later proved lethal.
Mystery of a Soldier’s Fate
In the run-up to the end of World War II, the Anglo-American expeditionary force invaded the French coast at the beaches of Normandy on “D-Day,” June 6, 1944. These were the largest amphibious operations ever to be undertaken. I have a particular interest in that invasion, being the namesake (through my middle name) of PFC Herman Nickell, who became a hero at Normandy. Uncle Herman survived the perilous landing and participated in the heavy fighting around “Purple Heart Hill,” as well as in the push toward Saint-Lo, which was captured June 18. Just before that, although slightly wounded, he returned to action and volunteered for a scouting mission. During that reconnaissance, on June 17—near Couvains—he was shot and killed by a German sniper (Nickell 1992). (I was born December 1 of that year and so named after the war hero.)
But was he really killed? It was not until a month later that his parents received a telegram telling them of their son’s death in the Allied invasion. A confirming letter arrived soon thereafter. The hometown paper, The Licking Valley Courier, stated:
When the message came Sunday that Herman had been killed in action, a pall of gloom fell upon the entire community. Young people mourned the loss of a noble comrade, and the aged bowed in reverent prayer for the bereaved parents, the lonely sisters, … the precious brother, … and the host of other relatives and friends who are left to mourn his departure. (Quoted in Nickell 1992)
But wait! Confusion soon came. As Herman’s brother, J. Wendell Nickell (my father) wrote to U.S. Senator A.B. Chandler in a letter dated September 4, there was a possibility that Herman was still alive. A fellow soldier’s letter of June 26 (nine days after Herman’s reported death) said that Herman had suffered only a minor wound. Another soldier, in a letter of July 10, reportedly mentioned having seen him just two days previously. And “a picture taken from the Saturday Evening Post”—showing wounded soldiers awaiting return to England—included a young man whom family and friends thought was Herman.
“These facts,” continued my father’s letter to Senator Chandler (a family friend), “are of course indirect, but to a brokenhearted family they are a straw of hope.”
Nevertheless, fate decreed otherwise, and the mystery eventually solved itself. Obviously the letter that said Herman had only been slightly wounded was referring to his first wound (whereas the official telegram and confirming letter reported he had been killed in action). The second letter brought confusion over dates or other error, and the magazine photo was a simple case of mistaken identity—likely due to wishful thinking. Such a factor was no doubt involved in countless cases—especially concerning those who went missing in action or perhaps whose remains were just unidentified, like those symbolized at the Tomb of the Unknowns.
Not long after the official letter was received by his parents notifying them of Herman’s death, his brother’s last letter to him was returned, marked “DECEASED.” Still, it was almost three years after the war ended that Herman’s body was returned, escorted by a Sergeant Leroy Kinney. The flag-draped coffin lay in state in his parents’ home (Nickell 1992). (I, the child who was then under four years old and named for Herman, reportedly sat on Sgt. Kinney’s lap. A generation later I wrote a poem titled “As His Namesake.” It bears the line “And now I grow old for him.”)
Ghost Voice at Sadzot
On December 16, 1944, just five days prior to the legendary Battle of the Bulge, Company B of the U.S. 87th Mortar Battalion was holed up in the hamlet of Sadzot, Belgium (on what would become the northern shoulder of that battle). The men were already veterans of the D-Day assault at Utah Beach. Now, half frozen, they took refuge in the hamlet’s old stone and wood houses, anticipating the German spearheads that would come charging toward Liège.
The situation in Sadzot was eerily quiet. While battles raged throughout Belgium, the mortar men had sat on the proverbial powder keg in the hamlet for three days and long nights without the sign of a single German soldier or even the sound of a rifle shot. Where was the supposedly oncoming enemy spearhead?
On December 27, about an hour before midnight, a corporal named John Snyder was hunching over his wireless radio. The set remained “open” at all times, its frequency linked to the infantry battalion supported by the eight mortars set up in the hamlet.
Suddenly, a voice on the radio warned: “A large formation of Krauts are headed through the woods directly for your village!”
Snyder alerted the company commander, Captain James J. Marshall, who in turn roused his men. They rushed to take up defensive positions along the front of the hamlet. They waited tensely for some noise to presage the oncoming German attack, but the surrounding pine forests were silent.
After a couple of hours, Captain Marshall canceled the alert, and all but those on outpost duty left to bed down again. Marshall asked the wireless operator who had sounded the alert. He did not know. And the infantry battalion to which the mortar company was linked denied any call from them. But then where had it come from, wondered Marshall. If the caller was from another unit, how could he have known their radio frequency? How did he even know there were Americans at Sadzot or, for that matter, that a German army was heading for that particular village?
Captain Marshall tried other possibilities, contacting the other headquarters in the region. Yet all of them denied giving the warning broadcast.
All remained quiet thereafter—for about an hour. At approximately 1:25 a.m., all hell broke loose. From out of the pines on three sides of Sadzot charged screaming foot soldiers, accompanied by explosions, bursting grenades, and gunfire. The American GIs—sixty-five in all—dashed into battle against some four hundred SS soldiers. Only seventeen GIs were able to get away. The rest were killed or captured, and many of them were wounded. One of the survivors was Captain Jim Marshall, who would ponder ever after: What was the source of the mysterious ghost voice at Sadzot (Breuer [1997] 2016, 148–150)?
(Please do not read further if you would like to try your hand at solving the mystery. Otherwise, I offer my solution as follows.)
I believe the most likely possibility is that the phantom voice was that of a reconnoiterer: in military parlance, one sent out to move about and gather information (e.g., concerning military positions). If he was not dispatched by Captain Marshall, perhaps he was from a higher command, or from one of the eight mortar positions at Sadzot, and was sent out by another—or even went out on his own to scout out the enemy. This hypothesis could explain 1) how he knew B Company’s radio frequency; 2) how he knew there was a mortar unit in Sadzot; 3) how he knew where the German force was heading; and 4) how—if he was subsequently killed—he never came to light as the source. The hypothesis would also be consistent with the voice’s use of the word Krauts and answer why “The guy simply came on the air and started talking.”
Having so much corroborative evidence favors this explanation being the correct one. And the principle of Occam’s razor—that the hypothesis with the fewest assumptions is likely correct—seems to have prevailed again.
References
Breuer, William B. (1997) 2016. Unexplained Mysteries of World War II. New York, NY: The Quarto Group.
Nickell, Joe. 1992. Historical Sketches: Soldier’s fate. The Licking Valley Courier (January 2).
———. 2019. Premonition! Foreseeing what cannot be seen. Skeptical Inquirer 43(4) (July/August): 17–20.
Yarborough, Lt. Gen. William P. (Ret.) 1994. Interview in Breuer [1997] 2016, 186–188, 224.