Road to Purgatory

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Even before the banzai attack, the young corporal Captain Arthur Wermuth had taken under his wing, some months ago, was already something of a legend on the peninsula.

Michael Satariano of DeKalb, Illinois, had seemed so slight, such a child at twenty, that Wermuth had given in to protective feelings about his charge, which were not wise in war. The boy was about five ten and slender, his tanned skin due not to an Italian heritage but the tropical sun that they all endured; his hair and eyes were dark brown, his face blessed with such an angelic innocence that the Filipino Scouts — who were so impressed with the lad’s exploits — had taken to calling him un Demonio Angelico.

Any affection the captain nurtured for the soft-spoken, taciturn lad — any fatherly concern he might harbor — was offset by the deadpan ferocity Satariano brought to combat. The boy’s battle-field commission reflected his bravery during the withdrawal from Luzon to Bataan; Satariano — his behavior emblematic of General MacArthur’s “stand and fight, fall back and dynamite” strategy — had waited until the last moment to dynamite a key bridge.

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