With us today. Courtesy of peter and pamela vos as well as bob and alice. Alison smith bob drury is the author, coauthor, editor of nine books hes written for numerous publications, including the New York Times, vanity fair, mens journal and gq. Hes currently a contributing editor and Foreign Correspondent for mens health, and he lives in new jersey. Tom clavin is the author or coauthor of 16 books for 15 years. He wrote for the New York Times and has contributed to such magazines as golf, mens journal, parade Readers Digest and smithsonian. Hes currently the investigator of features correspondent for manhattan magazine and lives in sag harbor, new york. Together, they are the number one New York Times bestselling authors of the heart of everything that is lucky six, six, six houses. Typhoon last men out and the last stand of fox company, which won the marine corps heritage foundations general wallace and green award. Please give a warm savannah welcome to bob drury and tom clavin. Thank you very much. Thank you to the festival organizers. Thank you to our sponsors devices in the smiths. Thank you, everybody, for being here. Were certainly glad to be here. And thats clayborn. Yeah. Its a good thing you reminded me. I forgot myself. Phone and were here to talk about our newest the last hill. And before we tell you the story, the bits and pieces of the story we wanted to talk a bit about the significant difference we in working on this book than than some previous books. The very first book that bob drury and i did together called horses, typhoon and was published in 2007. Were talking about 16 years ago. And for those of you not familiar with it, its the story of december 1944, when the third fleet under admiral William Halsey was steaming on way to the philippines to assist in the return i shall return invasion by Douglas Macarthur and ran smack into a typhoon typhoon cobra and three ships were sunk. 900 men went into the water and about hundred were drowned. It was the worst loss of life by the u. S. Navy in the entire world war to not, you know, any of the other engagements that were fought. So we mostly worked on this book in 2000 for 2526, and it was published, i said in 2007 and a huge advantage we had at that time is that they had, like i said, there had been about 100 survivors of that disaster. We we ended up interviewing about 20, say about two dozen of those men. And when youre doing a story of an event that took place, a dramatic event that took place in history, a great advantage is to actually speak to the participants. You know, it could be five years later, it could be decades or whatever, because theres something in addition to whatever information they can provide, you get to get a sense of, you know, they go back in time to that original experience and you get almost by osmosis, you get feel some of what they were feeling. So its very invaluable. And ill give you one very quick example. There was a man who had been a sailor whod been in the water for 60 hours before he was rescued. And we, as part of tracking some of these gentlemen down, we found out this fellow lived, i believe it was in maryland, and we tracked him down. And i called him up that, you know, wed both doing interviews and i explained who we were and what we would story we were working on. And he said, let me you back in two days and he hung up. And so we thought, well, lets cross this guy off. He paid just was getting rid of us. Yet two days later the phone rings and its him and hes im ready to talk now. And i said, well, if you dont mind my asking how come it took two days for you . Call me back, he said. I figured if i was going to tell anybody of my experience, i had to tell wife for 58 years. First. So the kind of experience that we had working on that book. Now fast forward here we were working on the last hill another World War Two story and a big difference that we found is were finding still that there are some remarkable relatively World War Two stories just in 2022. And you know our was published in november a David Maraniss was here with the mosquito bowl hes one of the participants alex kershaw i think is a part time savannah resident came out with a book called events against all odds about audie murphy and some of the women that were that fought with. Theres still really good stories. The difference is that we dont have the people to interview anymore. I mean, theyre there according to what i read, something in World War Two magazine a few weeks ago, the World War Two veterans are dying at the rate of between two and 50 and 275 per day. And its expected that there may not be any World War Two veteran left alive by 2030. Thats seven years from now, and the ones that are around know the youngest of the World War Two veterans are in the nineties. So theyre either to find or even if you find them, they may not be physically or mentally able to tell you what their experience was. So thats what we found. We were writing our book about the Second Army Ranger Battalion that we couldnt find any of them still alive, which i certainly heard participated in the event that we were mostly writing about. So we have to depend on, i guess, part of what we do is whats been left behind. What do these these fellows left leave behind . In some cases you have the Communications Officer of the was a man named james eichner. I know was his name and he was a pack. He collected not only one, he during the war, but after the war he collected reports, letters, journals, memories, adams notes, anything he could find from that period of time to read about battalion served in World War Two. And he just collected it all. And you can find his collection. He lived to be 100, by the way. He bequeathed his collections like 16 linear feet of boxes to the to the university of texas. So thats something that you can find if somebody took all the years of effort he into it certainly benefited us in some cases. You have you contact family members and see what you can find, what they might be available . The chief medical officer of the they call him his last name was block b. Okay, call doc block. We found his youngest son in and during phone conversation with him just to find out, you know, did your father tell you any stories about, his experiences . Thats another one of the things that you can imagine. We confront with World War Two family members that theyre their parents and so they tell their stories. But in this case, as were in the conversation to ask you about this, he says, oh, by the way, do you want to see my handwritten journal. I said, i would. By the time he hung up the phone, i was in michigan michigan. Kidding. But hes. But he said, ill make a copy of you and a few days later in the mail, i got a handwritten journal, which, of course shared with bob of the dark doctors experiences from the whole time he was in the battalion up until the day that he was killed during this accident of the last hill that well talk about in more detail what gave it away the doc blocked. Oh well forget it. Were done. Any questions. And in some cases were looking for journals some some of these veterans, especially as they got older, they didnt want their stories to be lost. So they sometimes wrote privately published memoirs or journals or they just were writing things down and saying, if, you know, i want my my son, my daughter, my grandchildren, my, my nephews to have this. So sometimes we could find some of these things that might be and they were published in 1996 by, you know, you know villa avenue press, you know, because thats they set up a Little Company that they published their memoirs. So those kind of things are very valuable. And the thing one one more thing i want to before i turn over to barbara what i mentioned is there have been really good people have been very diligent over the years, especially more recent years as the number of veterans of veterans, you know, disappear who have conducted oral histories. Theyve made a point. It could be a local library, it could be a local university it could be in some cases, the World War Two museum in new orleans has been really good about doing getting veterans that come to the either come to the facility if theyre physically able or they make accommodations for them and they interview them for hours or as long as they are able to talk and have the advantage of being taken care of of taken advantage of those oral histories, these men have passed on. But its their voices just hearing their voices in addition to what might be on a transcript can make a difference as as research is concerned. And the other thing thats a great help and im going to turn it over to bob is the use of contemporary sources. I know is something thats a particular fondness for bob to look into. Im going to turn it over to him. Ill be back. Dont worry. Kathy, thank you for that lovely introduction. Some of it was even true. Continuing on the theme of contemporaneous writings being so critical to the research tom and i do for our collaborations, journals, diaries doc blocks, combat diaries, handwritten letters. Inhouse, not official after action reports, but inhouse after action reports. As an example, ill give you an example. Im sure youre aware that its customary at events such as this for an author to read a short passage two for his or her new book, something that a small bit that gets to the heart of the matter and. So im turning to page to take it here where i see ive written a memo to myself saying, you put yourself sleep when you read out loud, please bore these good people to tears by reading loud. So that ends our reading of todays ceremony. Anyway, to toms point about researching the last hill and in particular the contemporaneous writings. Its the best. Its not like we did not take advantage of this thousands, thousands of. Official War Department histories of the autobiographies once again, thousands of autobiographies and biographies by the participant. Its by declassified over the years intelligence report, combat reports. We did, of course, take advantage of that. Thats where we began. As a matter of fact, thats where you have to begin. And actually, this all happened how we began. It was because i was having a beer. I know my wife looks at me, me having a beer, but as it happened several years ago, probably more than several years ago now, i was out with a friend of mine, a retired Army Lieutenant colonel, artillery man, and we were having a beer and it was over that beer. We were disgusted with something that was happening. For the life of me ive wracked my brain, it might have been something about icis i cant remember specific likely. But at one point tom crowley was his name. Crowley up his hands and he says, oh got her. Reminds me that debacle, World War Two and the hurricane fast. And i was like, what . Her grandfather. Id never heard the battle of the hurricane forest in World War Two. And as an aside, i probably should say that as a crusty former artillery lieutenant colonel, he did not use the word debacle. In fact, the phrase he used began with the word cluster, if you get it, if you get my point, so, so naturally my curiosity is aroused. I call tom clavin that night. I said herky fast, maybe we should do a little cursory research. And to see whats going on might be a book here. So i that night pulled out my official history my official United StatesWar Department. A history of the Siegfried Line Campaign on the german belgian border in september, october, november 1944. And yes, i am the kind of nerd who has that official history of own bookshelf and and the report real door stopper, by the way, was written in 1963 by the United States armys chief military military historian Charles Mcdonald was his name. And just coincidentally enough, Charles Mcdonald had fought through the hurricane forest trying to get to the last hill. In our book title, as a 21 Year Old Army captain and i wasnt certain what i find, but as i started leafing through the pages, i just thought, wow, look, i mean, it was undaunted courage from american gis, personal sacrifice, a lot of blood and gore a real lot. And i mean, were talking body parts strewn the forest floor, guys fuzed together from direct artillery hits, the pervasive stench hanging in the air of gas, gangrene escaping from thousands of dead and dying men. But what it did not have, at least to us we talked about it didnt have a through line. It didnt have a narrative. And it didnt have a happy ending narrative. As macdonald, the historian, makes clear, we were for those three months. We were pretty much getting our kicked by the german vermont in the hurricane. I mean, they were fighting for the fatherland. This was right on the german border. They werent fighting in france or the netherlands, belgium, and they had orders from adolf hitler himself. You will fight to the last man to the last cartridge. You will stand or die and im thinking, yeah, its girl who wants to read about this america. I mean, its a catastrophe where, you know, its a good story, but nobody wants to read about a losing battle and. Then suddenly, as a despite all the individual heroics, im like, he i dont know. I dont know if this is our story, but then but then i get to a page in macdonalds book. It was a brief mention, no more than a couple of paragraphs about how this battered ranger battalion, the second ranger battalion, reduced this point in the war to some 400 officers noncombat enlisted men. They proven and proven themselves. Normandy beach. They had proven themselves even at the Brittany Campaign they had hoped to take the city brest and as a last resort, eisenhower and the allied chief of staff threw these 400 rangers into the hurricane forest to try to turn the tide of the battle. Im like, wow, thousands upon thousands of men been trying to take this hill. 400 watts. What are four or 400 guys going to do . Which led us, of course, to the classic question that Butch Cassidy posed to the kid. Who are these guys . Who are these guys that they thought that 400 of them could turn the tide . So this when we when i was telling tom about these rangers, you could tell even over the phone we talked alarm bells. I mean, choose your metaphor alarm bells. Antenna going up. Theres here. Theres some kind of good here. And so the next step, of course, was to find out who are these guys. So tom was digging into papers of the pack rag. Eichner, and was finding jeffrey blocked blocks living son and procuring a xerox copy of doc blocks handwritten combat journal. We were collecting all this stuff and im reading and. It was almost coincidental that i found out that one of the rangers, one of the heroic turns out to the hero, one of the hero protagonist of our book, len laemmle, was his name, and he grew up. And after the war returned to the next over from the town where i live, on the jersey shore. So i went to the library over there. Tom the library. The library and said, do you know colonel paul zeiger . I said, no. He said, oh, well, paul is an amateur military historian. Hes retired army colonel, and he is hes running a campaign for ten years. He ran a campaign to try to get linda lemole, who died at the age of 91, in 2011, to try to get lynn lemole a posthumous medal of honor. Our militarys highest award. And so i tracked paul zeiger, called him, say, i buy you a cup of coffee. Im waiting in the coffee shop and here comes zeiger. And hes coming in with his big briefcase, and he pulls out files that are this thick. And im like, the motherlode mother lode. The mother lode. So not only colonel zango collected letters from now deceased rangers, attesting to lendl, emails a top hill, 400. The title of our book, titular hill in our book, but from these letters from la la mills ranger mates, there were describing their own experiences, their experiences, just parenthetically as well, i took a bullet in my side i saw len took one in his side and we figured if we that kind of stuff and were seeing other if the official word histories and the married lives and the after action reports if they supply the the bone heres the meat that tom clavin and i can put on phone. I mean were talking a little amount, for instance, not only is pauls ego trying to get him a posthumous medal of honor. But it turns we were found out in one of these in james in the Commanding Officer of the second battalion, in his papers. He wanted to put len lemole in for the medal of honor for his actions at normandy beach. And lemole went to him, said, please dont, please dont, because lemole knew that War Department, if you were awarded the medal of honor, the War Department pulled you from combat. They couldnt afford to have a medal of honor recipient die or worse, be captured by the enemy paraded about. So heres, linda mell turning it. Please dont please dont that is not in the official War Department stuff. This is the stuff were finding out. As it turns out, they gave lemole a field promotion. He was a sergeant to Second Lieutenant and distinguished service cross, which is our second highest. I mean, heres a bob. You know what im going to let tom tell you about bob. And hes one of our favorites here. The captain, harold, the duke slater. I mean, the duke, even his nickname swaggered. The duke was blown off his Landing Craft a half mile from beach from floated in the freezing waters for hours, was finally up, was a boat, was going to be taken to a hospital ship suffering from severe hypothermia. Instead, he pulls his sidearm, says, youre taking me back to that . I got to lead my men. This is the stuff you find out these diaries in these letters, in these journals th