Homework can be hard but squatting and a diner for internetwork is even harder. Thats why were providing lower income students access to affordable internet so homework can just be homework. Cox connects to compete. Cox, along with these Television Companies, supports cspan2 as a public service. I am represented mcdaniels and im professor of english and at Jackson State University and welcome to our panel entitled world war ii from the air. The sponsor for this panel is a university of southern mississippi bell center for the study of war and society, with representatives for our sponsor, please stand at this time. [applause] lets thank our sponsors. [applause] the moderator for this session is marshall ramsey. Todays editor at large, he is also host of a weekly statewide Radio Program and a Television Program on mississippi public broadcasting. And marshall is the author and marshall is the author of several books, a two him pulitzer finalist and named a top 100 employee of gannett. And a couple of housekeeping notes, if you dont turn off your phone, ill draw a cartoon about you. And also, tom was supposed to be with us today and he had a tragedy in his family and we want to send our prayers to he and his family and going through a tough time. Thats why theres two of us and im thrilled to have the panel we have today. Ive been a ill do the bio thing in a half second here, but ive gotten to know kevin here, too, and a treat today. The structure today, well do this chronologically. Were going 0 cover the air war from 1943, the summer over germany, over europe, and they are were going to move over to the pacific toward the end of the war. I think thats important because the nature of air warfare changed during that time and we went from the bomber mafia, a Pickle Barrel five miles up with the norden bomb site to lets burn the whole place down. Were going to go through that evolution a little bit and im excited, like i said, to have the guests. And kevin sitting next to me, an Award Winning journalist and massively successful no easy day the inside story of the bin laden road he cowrote with the navy seal, mark owen. And hes covered war and politics and general interest stories and published in gq, mens journal, roll stone and many other publications. And this latest book is damn lucky, one major, john lucky luckadoo and youre going to get to know about lucky in a minute, an incredible, incredible man. And james on the other side is a former neiman fellow at harvard the author of black snow, look i cant recommend both of these books anymore than im going to recommend them, but i think youll understand, its black snow , and you can get it here and you can get it signed when we do the signing in a little bit. The book about the fire bombing of tokyo, and the road to atomic bomb, and this book rampage chosen as finalist for the prestigious prize for military history for the historical society. Target tokyo, youve probably seen that. It was 2016 Pulitzer Prize finalist and the war below and the attack here, hes got a wife and two children from south carolina, glad to have them in mississippi today because mississippi has a great tradition of aviation as well. Kevin, i guess well get started with you. Number one if you were a fiction writer and you created a character, lucky luckadoo and if you described lucky in your book, i wont believe it, but hes one of the most unbelievable men and whats great about it, he still is, still with us and still driving around dallas right now 100 years old. But tell everybody a little about lucky. Because lucky is the truly the hero of your book and you see the war through his eyes and its a powerful story. If you made it up in fiction, editor would have cut it out. A tall, lanky 100yearold man july of last year drove me around dallas for a weekend and i never felt like i was in danger and that says a lot. And the thing about lucky,s got a unique story in that he was, you know, his dad lost everything at the crash, his dad was a stockbroker and he sort of came from a family that was a little broken in tennessee, and he worked his way, he and his best friend sully, to understanding and wanting to be great pilots and i think this is really a story where i think were going to talk a lot about precision bombing and these aircrafts. What i was trying to do was damn lucky put a human in the story line. Some of the best aircraft. B17 is a cool plane. B29 is a cool plane. B29 and b17 have a legacy that i hope we get into, the war started and b17 is almost obsolete. And what we think about world war ii is the plane, and sit in the cockpit with lucky and the horror. The more i spent time with the man and the more i marvelled that he climbed into at that cockpit ever. Well start with 1943. So hes in england,s getting ready fly and hes literally doing the check because his life is depending on the aircraft. And hes facing mortality every time he steps into the plane and four Different Things he could have faced that could have met his demise. And every time they climbed into the aircraft, unpressured, negative 40 degrees up there. Fear, flak, freezing, getting into the aircraft was pa feat, bravery personified. Because the stats basically, if you climb into that aircraft theres a good chance after the 12th mission youre on borrowed time. If you can get to 12 missions, youre a really lucky guy. So, the attrition rate was ridiculous. So he faced that every time. They would go out with a room like this full of crews in the morning and come back to, you know, two or three crews. Every time they lost a b17 that was 10 men. So, you know, you lose you can do the math, right . And they would go up, you know, 2, 300 at a time and the come back with maybe five planes, okay. So, that alone, i dont know how he did it and we talk a lot about why did you get back into that plane, how can you get back into that plane. His thought i was there, its my job, im stuck and couldnt get out testify now and that became a motivating factor of doing it for his teammates and then once youre in the air, youre freezing, right . And i flew in yesterday looking out the window and every time i fly now i think what it would be like to fly at 20,000, 30,000 feet without a pressurized aircraft. Theyre in the elements, they need the oxygen. The sweat would freeze off their faces and when they needed to go to the bathroom, they would urinate into a condom and freeze until they got down. And on top of the fact that, you know, you were thousands of feet in the air. And so, youre fighting all of that as your getting to germany and face luftwaff and they were fighting for their homeland. They were a professional organization fighting against lucky. First mission i was talking about them. You didnt have any combat experience did you go around the base and talk to other crews what to expect, what to think about, tips to survive . He said no, who was i going to talk to, none of us had combat experience the First Mission and they had no idea what they were facing and learning it on the fly as they were losing men in droves. The fighters were very effective, but the flip side and i got this from a great german folk, and the germans were trying to figure out how to fight the giant formations of b17s, and werent sure how you attack that which is where you get twelve oclock high. And theres a movie, also and the way to attack the b17 until a modification attack headon. When they would fight each other, its a game of chicken and three seconds and fighters would scream past you, a quote by one of the german aces, the whole idea of attacking headon. When you fight against the russians or fight against the spite fires, the british, its kind of fun, but when you turn in on a formation of b17s all of your things are flashing in front of your eyes. This is tough. The war over europe at that point from fighters and bombers was a war of attrition and its well get to this i think, but eventually the reason why the americans win not because theyre more skilled or in any way, they just, we could make bombers and crews, train crews faster than germans could keep up. B17g and h, a gun to be able to shoot back at the fighters when they came at them. The b17 was the two guns in the front and the only reasons the guns are there to shoot the planes as they came in. The last to do with flak. And hitler was with the flak and the best guns and they would steal flak guns so they overran russia on the Eastern Front and drag the russian guns back and flak alone took down more bombers than the fighters. And that, what was jarring about that, there was at first they would try to dodge the flak, but realize statistically it was easier to fly through it which well get with your guys. And theyll fly through the maelstrom of shrapnel and in a plane that didnt have armor and rolling the dice to try to get through it. Got over the target for a guy like lucky who likes to fly the plane and hed turn over to the bombardier in flak, and hope they didnt get hit. Four big things every time he would climb into the airplane i would face. One of the things to me a stupid decision, when they were in the states they decided to switch out all the copilots with the crew, so you built this on with the crew and suddenly stuck in with a new crew and caused lucky a lot of problems, he was not wellreceived when he first came with his crew. Youre right. Lucky would agree with you. The 100th bomber they had a bit of a hiccup, a training expert before they were certified to go to england and got lost, i forgot exactly where they were supposed to fly, but ended up separated all over the country. And so they got stuck in going back to training and what the air force, the air force realized a lot of copilots that they had on the bomb group had as many hours as some of the lead pilots in other squadrons. So the air force said look, were going to take the experienced copilots and make them lead pilots and bring a class of copilots in and crews were upset about this because basically like you said, they had fought together and theyd trained together and it was sort of a jinx. A lot of the crews now youre its a jinx putting a new guy in. When lucky gets to the 100th bomb group and the crew hates his guts because they liked the copilot they had. And hes never known a b17 and the biggest plane was two engines and he learned when he got to england 40 hours or 30 hours of stick time, thats it. He learned on the fly the whole way. You know, obviously, damn lucky a lot of that damn luck was just dumb luck, right . I mean, you didnt know when a shell was going to go off or you didnt know when a shell from a, you know, a fighter is going to hit you. But lucky made his own luck, too. He was a very good pilot and a lot of things about him. Tell us about him as a person and as a pilot that helped create situations that allowed him to be able to survive, i mean, several of the missions. Well, look, its lawn, i was in savannah for memorial day and for those who have read the book or going to read the book, they dedicated a plaque to luckys best friend sully in savannah so i took my 10yearold son down there and he and he and lucky, theyve got a b17 in the gallery and lucky, 100 years old climbs into the cockpit and my 10yearold, nine at the time sits down in the copilot seat for an hour and change, they went through the whole thing to the point at one point my son said i think we can take off, put some fuels in this thing. But lauck spent two hours in this thing and watching him talk to my son and too much my son what the instruments did and how to fly the aircraft, he was meticulous, a professional of everything and i think he deep down loved to fly, but i think the luck he made. He was good at it and he was really dedicated to job he had to do and its a testament to his professionalism and bravery and service that he those attributes probably saved his crew more than you he would probably admit. He didnt seem to panic, focused on the job at hand and that did pay off several times and you mentioned sully, his best friend, and they both wanted to go off and go fight with the british and raf and so forth. And that part of it, its like a separate part of the story, but powerful because you get to see london through their eyes and you get to hear the story. And just tell a little about sully because there was some research that you were able to do at university of tennessee chattanooga that lucky got to be part of which i think had to be a gift to him. Sully and lucky, if i made it up, youd be like, come on, dude. Sully and lucky, fraternity, going to university of chattanooga and both had an idea at some point the u. S. Was going to get in the war and they wanted to be fighter pilots. So they applied to fly from the Royal Canadian air force. Their applications were accepted, except they had to get it signed off by their parents because they were under 18. Sully, an interesting guy, his father was wounded during world war i by a german attack and eventually dies after sully is born. So sully just has his mother. So lucky and sully go to sullys mom and sullys mom says if you feel like you need to do it ill sign it. And she signs it. Lucky says im in, were going to canada and we will be fighter pilots. He goes back to his house and his mother says i dont like the idea and if your father signs im fine. And his father is called the colonel, betting on horses, and he takes one look and says youre an idiot, and he didnt sign it. And sully goes and goes to the Royal Canadian air force and they lose touch midway through luckys tour in england and sully shows up in a spit fire and they rekindle their friendship, he flies with lucky in a bomber and mocks lucky for being a bus driver. Lucky then flies the spit fire and realizes hes going to die if he doesnt land fast and they end up going to london, but whats interesting about that whole story is, i heard about sully and i figured it was an interesting part of the beginning of the book. But i didnt think id use it later, and then doing some research around sully, i found his diary at the university of chattanooga and they had it in the archives and lucky never read it and i was able to give him insight into his best friend and the things that sully did, and met one lucky again. And ill leave you with the. Lucky was the straight man and sully is the hellion. Hes always trying to find booze and something and found the reports from his commanders who would write about and talk about him as a middling pilot whos decent and happy to have him, but hes not great. At the end of the day, its an important piece because again, when you think about the book, trying to put a soul into this thing and try to put humanity to the planes, i think that sully and luckys relationship does that. Thats what makes the book so good not just ive read several books about it, but youre viewing it through his eyes on that. A couple of questions, two parts on this, first of all, how did you get hooked up with lucky, how did you end up doing it . And the second part, describe the process of working with lucky versus working with the former Navy Seal Mark owen. Okay, so i saw a question and answer story that lucky did with the military times, and in it he talks a little about his career and i was kind of captivated by it. It was great because it was his verbatim, him telling the story verbatim, it wasnt filtered through a reporter and i thought that is a great story and i tracked down his phone number and called him out of the blue and said, hey, your story is amazing, id love to read the book you wrote about your career and your life and he said, i dont have a story, i dont have a book. And i said well, weve got to fix that. So i convinced him to let me write this book and got him to do it right before covid started and we were set to sart start in march of 2020 and coiffed hit and if i went down to the his Retirement Community in dallas i might kill him and everybody and thats not a good start to the book so we ended up doing it on the phone, the whole thing on the phone and i think it really, it helped me get through covid, ton honest, something i could look forward to every day at 4 00 we got on the phone for an hour and we were in world war ii and i think it helped him get through it, too, he was pretty ice isolated whats going on. And the guys ive talked to from world war ii, they have the same idea still fighting for one another, politics doesnt matter when youre in combat. The one thing ill take away, if you ask mark owen to tell a story, its going to be cinematic, hes a good story teller, its visual and viceral. Lucky doesnt tell stories like that, we flew to brennan and we bombed it, everybody died, but me and i survived. I cant use that and then hes frustrated with me and i say, what did that smell like, what was in your left pocket, viceral things, what does it feel like when you put your hand on the yoke when its going . He didnt understand until he read the book why i would ask those, and so i find a little bit of times ive interviewed with world war ii run into this, too, i dont know if they grew up with radio and we grew up with movies and tv, but thats the biggest difference i see with interviewing both. I was thinking if you had killed him it would have been damn lucky until i met kevin mauer, a great title for the book. Not publicity. Probably would not have sold you too many books. And i guess probably before we switch over to james. Let me ask, he obviously went through hell. I mean, reading your book, i mean, i have a whole new appreciation from what that generation went through and ive read a lot of world war ii stuff, but ill say this about it, he came out of it pretty beat up mentally. He was pretty and, but it seemed like when he met his wife, that that literally saved him. What do you i mean, do you think that thats truly what helped him get through this ptsd . No doubt. The nice part about this, you have a pretty good war story, a pretty good story about two friends, and that friendship and then you have a pretty good love story at the end where he finally meets his wife and i think thats the thing that lets him heal from the trauma and what he experienced in world war ii and i think shes the reason why we have this book because she is ate one that sort of urged had i am to did him to let it out and i give her the credit to be honest and shes probably the coauthor, without her i dont know if wed ever get the story. When i walked in a few months ago, john the owner handed me the book and buy this now and flipped it over and showed me the last couple of pages that lucky had wrote and kind of paraphrased the message that he left for us and made me sit up a little straighter and made me want to be a little better american. Hes frustrated with us. Hes frustrated with what were doing, he feels like he and his squadron put it all on the line and like to not see us fumble the ball, if you will. And i thought of him at the end of the book to give us the afterward. When you read the book its me until the e