Compare and Contrast in the latest Billy Boyle WWII Mystery by James R. Benn

JENN McKINLAY: I am absolutely delighted to have the brilliant (and fellow SCSU alum) James R. Benn here today to talk about his latest work in the Billy Boyle World War II mystery series, which comes out TODAY! 

JAMES R. BENN: Compare and contrast . . . 

How many times have you seen those words in a school assignment? 

Comparison analyzes things that are similar, while contrasting discusses things that are different. A compare and contrast essay analyzes two subjects by comparing and contrasting both. It’s been a while since my last college English class, but the phrase kept popping into my mind as I was writing Proud Sorrows, the eighteenth Billy Boyle WWII mystery (Soho Press, September 5, 2023).

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There are several components to the plot of this novel, but two disparate groups stood out in my mind as prime candidates for a good, old-fashioned compare and contrast. 

The first group is the Ritchie Boys. Ever heard of them?

Most people haven’t. 

I’d heard the name but had only a vague understanding of who they were until I delved into their story. As I researched the plot for Proud Sorrows, I thought this could be the book in which to include them. The more I learned, the more certain I became. Here are the basics:

The Ritchie Boys were a secret Military Intelligence Service program created to interrogate German prisoners of war. Over 15,200 servicemen were trained for these duties at Camp Ritchie in Maryland, and that name ultimately became the moniker of the highly classified project. The men who participated in these specialized interrogations were sworn to secrecy and for decades remained silent about their experiences.

A class at Camp Ritchie, Maryland, 1943.

GIs who trained at Camp Ritchie were not actually called “Ritchie Boys” during the Second World War. That name was popularized after German filmmaker Christian Bauer released a documentary called “The Ritchie Boys” in 2004. 

Some writers use “Ritchie Boys” to refer to all the soldiers who were trained in intelligence at Camp Ritchie beginning in 1942. Others use the term only to refer to the 2,200 German or Austrian Jewish refugees who trained at Camp Ritchie after having immigrated to the United States to escape Nazi persecution. And who often arrived in the States as young children without their parents.

As natural-born German speakers, their expertise in the language and understanding of German behavior made them highly valued, and very effective, interrogators. These men often found themselves interrogating rabid Nazis, the very kind of men who had abused them when they lived in Germany. Extracting intelligence information to save Allied lives and shorten the war was their best revenge.

Martin Selling had endured three brutal months in the Dachau concentration camp before finding haven in America. Ultimately, he trained at Camp Ritchie and served in Military Intelligence. Here he is questioning two recently captured SS soldiers.

Ritchie Boys worked at every level, from frontline units to headquarters and POW centers such as the fictional Marston Hall in Proud Sorrows. A postwar intelligence study attributed 60 percent of actionable intelligence in the European theater to the Ritchie Boys using their specialized interrogation techniques.

Their job was not without danger. In the opening days of the Battle of the Bulge, Kurt Jacobs and Murray Zappler, Ritchie Boys attached to the 106th Infantry Division, were captured when their unit was overrun. One of the former German prisoners identified the two men to his commander as “Jews from Berlin.” The commander ordered them to be shot on the spot, stating, "The Jews have no right to live in Germany."

That Nazi officer, Captain Curt Bruns, was himself apprehended and executed after a court-martial in 1945. He was the first war criminal to be executed by the United States Army for war crimes after World War II. 

The more I read, the more I was struck by how dedicated and committed these men were. They joined the Army as soon as war was declared and suffered from both anti-Semitism and bureaucratic confusion in equal parts. They were still German citizens, and it took the Army a while to realize how useful they could be. Once Fort Ritchie was in operation, each class of soldiers marked their graduation by being sworn in as citizens of the United States.

Many Ritchie Boys made it their personal mission to find family members left behind in Germany as the war drew to a close. It was a hopeless search.

There’s a counterpoint to the Ritchie Boys within the pages of Proud Sorrows. Let’s compare and contrast the young men who fled Nazi persecution in the nation of their birth with those Britons who sought to embrace fascism and emulate the Nazi ideology.

British fascists.

Great Britain saw its own fascist movement in the 1930s. Oswald Mosley and the British Union of Fascists was foremost among these, numbering 50,000 at one point. Other groups were smaller, but even more pro-Nazi and anti-Semitic. All were outlawed in 1940 and their leaders interned, including Archibald Leese of the Imperial Fascist League, which plays a role in Proud Sorrows. 

A supporter of the Imperial Fascist League carries their flag at a prewar demonstration.

Although support for these fascist organizations rapidly declined with the start of the war, leading figures such as Mosley and Leese still held to their anti-democratic beliefs. As 1944 rolled around, and with the threat of German invasion a distant memory, most of the British fascist leaders were released from prison. 

One of these leaders was Archibald Ramsay, the head of The Right Club. The Right Club was one of the smaller British fascist parties, organized as a home for those who found the BUF to be not anti-Semitic enough. Upon his release, Archibald Ramsay reintroduced the 1275 Statute of Jewry to the House of Commons. He'd had a seat in the Commons before his detention, which was never revoked. The 1275 statute was the original document put forward by King Edward I which strictly limited the rights of Jews in Great Britain. 

And this is where the compare and contrast assignment comes in.

While the Ritchie Boys did all they could to help their adopted country free people from oppression, the British fascists acted as a mirror image. While they had been born into a free country, they willingly worked to give up that freedom and welcomed the boot heel of oppression.

These extreme right-wing groups favored the Duke of Windsor (the former King Edward VIII), a Nazi sympathizer. Each of the leaders plotted in one way or another to place themselves at the center of a Nazi puppet state, hoping for a German victory early in the war. Meanwhile, the Richie Boys risked their lives to stop Nazi aggression, putting themselves in harm's way.

As I wrote, I was continually struck at how diametrically and morally opposed the two groups were. The Ritchie Boys emerged as victors after much suffering and struggle and have been rightly lauded for their contributions. The British fascists, on the other hand, were imprisoned, their names now synonymous with shame, disgrace, and betrayal.

And as long as we're talking about compare and contrast . . . watch the past to understand the present.

James R. Benn is the author of the Billy Boyle World War II mysteries. The debut, Billy Boyle, was selected as a Top Five book of the year by Book Sense and was a Dilys Award nominee, A Blind Goddess was longlisted for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, The Rest Is Silence was a Barry Award nominee, and The Devouring was a Macavity Award nominee. Benn, a former librarian, lives on the Gulf Coast of Florida with his wife, Deborah Mandel.