It is my personal misfortune that i arrived too late to work with him. He is regarded as one of the most distinguished journalists of our time. His talents and unparalleled expertise in military affairs were a gift to the post and to our readers. With his latest book, he reminds us that begin continue only in a different form, a historian. This is the final installment in his trilogy about world war ii. He dedicated nearly 15 years to these three remarkable volumes. The l. A. Times has called the liberation trilogy a masterpiece of powerful storytelling. The Washington Post reviewer described the pros as achingly sublime. It is 877 pages but the reviewer noted this one seemed too short. In a recent interview with the National WorldWar Ii Museum in new orleans, rick remarked on the necessity of remembering and telling the story of this war. What he called the greatest selfinflicted catastrophe in Human History. 60 million dead, one light snuffed out every six seconds for six years. Fewer than 2 million remain alive. When we contemplate what is lost to as culturally as they slip into the shadows, foremost is the ability to bear witness, to tell the story firsthand, do a test with authenticity and authority why they fought suffered, and died. For all the stories told and retold, countless others will go untold. As the primary storytellers die off, it is important for their survivors, for us to sustain the story to keep it a vivid narrative that lives and breathes rather than something rapidly receding into the past with ever diminishing power to stir us. Rick has done more than almost anyone to sustain the story. For that, we can all be grateful. I am proud to introduce Rick Atkinson. [applause] Rick Atkinson well, thank you marty. I also regret that we didnt overlap. Thanks so much for coming this afternoon to this fantastic conclave of readers and writers. I apologize to those of you sitting here expecting to see my friend evan thomas. That was the last hour. I really apologize to those who expect to see my friend Khalid Husseini that is in a different tent. Id also like to thank the library of congress and the Washington Post. The other corporate sponsors for making this one of the great annual event in our town. It is not this time, it not that town. Its a hard time they live in the District Of Columbia are not. [applause] from the National Book festival shows you can still be civil and thoughtful and thought in washington d. C. Said jack london said a writer id not wait for inspiration to knock the door, but instead go looking for up at the club. With a club. 15 years ago i took what i found, what inspired me was the Second World War. The war lasted 3174 days and i by the end, it was the greatest greatest catastrophe in Human History. As marty said, 60 million dead. Thats 27,600 dead every day or 1150 dead an hour. If youre a german boy born between 1915 in 1924, the odds are one in three that by 1945 you would be dead. 14 of the soviet population of 190 million perished during the war. 60 million dead in six years is a death every three seconds. One, two, three. One, two, three. Thats world war ii. The writer kingsley and mouse once said that he only wanted to read books that begin, a shot rang out. The way ive approached the Second World War is to look on it as a trilogy, with three panels that mutually reinforce one another and im not still many, many more shots ring out. I begin with the American Water war in europe really begins in Northern Africa with the invasion by british and american troops in november 1942 and then we moved in second panel, the second panel, my second volume north across the mediterranean with the british and american troops for the invasion of sicily. End then to mainland italy places like salerno, the river and onto the liberation of rome on june 4, knight and 44. Well, this third volume, the 1944. Final panel opens on may 5th 15, 1944. On hammersmith road in london. And they are on may 15th eisenhower, patton, omar bradley, winston churchill, king george the sixth and several dozen of the most senior commanders have gathered to review for it last time the plan called overlord, which is the invasion of france, which is to take place in three weeks. They met in an auditorium at st. Pauls called the model room and the general said that girls were bundled up in their overcoats because even that was the middle of night, it was cold as a meat locker and they sat on hold with benches normally reserved for schoolboys. The poet john milton among other english luminaries had gone to st. Paul. On the florida cop put it this auditorium was an enormous paris relief map of the normandy coast, where the rivers and teeth into the atlantic and a british brigadier and no skid socks shuffled around on this hop is a discussed the individual locales and what would be coming in three weeks the most famous battlefield in the world. The beaches, for example. Utah omaha, gold, juno, sword and towns no one had heard of it soon would become infamous. Towns like saint lo and sure board and just on the edge of the map there is paris. And for the next 12 chapters the tale unspooled that these places and others. The battle of the bulge, the encirclement of the rower and final drive to pick every day on victory day on may 8, 1945. As in the first two volumes and would periodically shift from a tactical view to a higher ed where we can see operationally strategically with going on. Much of chapter 10, for example assenting altec, where we are red from church of Roosevelt Stalin and their senior commanders. We also peek in on the other side of the hill to see what the germans are doing. I also recount an invasion of Southern France in august 1944 as well as the subsequent drop drive up the wrong river valley by french and american troops and the launch to capture strasbourg and to reach the rhine in november 1944, 4 months before the armies that are coming from normandy arrive on the rhine. Its an important part of the liberation of europe from a part many of americans know very little about and the characters are fantastic. The generals and the french first error may Commanders Army commanders, beyond the power of any novelist to invent. He was described as one admirer by an animal of action. You would often appear in the middle of the night where his soldiers were sleeping and roar out, waking them up, what have you done for france . Hes that kind of guy. As you may suspect, the liberation of europe is not a nonscuppers subject. Amazon. Com was 60,000 hardcover world war ii titles. How do you tell that story said that you and you and you feel that you are hearing it again as that for the first time. Part of that is voice of course and narrative coherence. But a good part of it must be archival spade work. When it comes to world war ii, and archive rat like me can look large. The u. S. Army records alone for the Second World War with 17,000 tons. Like all great events in American History, world war ii is bottomless. There are wonderful things still to discover. So for example, i found that the National Archives in college park about 15 miles from here, a document that revealed thinking about, how are you going to get onto the beaches at the normandy if you know the beaches are going to be heavily defended. How are you going to get ashore by air, by parachute or bake glider . Someone proposed how about digging a tunnel under the English Channel . And so there was a study done at the officers who reported back to the high command. They said, we can do this. It will take 15,000 miners a year to excavate 50,000 tons of spoil, but we can do that. But what they could not finesse is when the first minor popped out an entire German Seventh Army was waiting. There was a whole collection of these problems and they had their own acronym. Cant wait, problems of the invasion of northwest europe. There was anxiety, for example the german airplanes wood fired over it lind and drop rats and dust with the bonnet plate and a bounty offered on rat carcass is to test for plague. They would think that the germans of fly over london and drop some thing called radioactive agents on london and there were geiger counters hidden all around the city to test for radio tv. The ally since the l. A. Start out 160,000 tons of chemical weapons in england and the mediterranean in case the war thats about 160 times more turned chemical. Thats about 160 times more than the syrians are suspect it to harbor at this point. My son also at the National Archives. Two plans for Chemical Warfare in normandy. Both of them had been approved by eisenhower. The first is predicated on french civilian casualties. The second plan, not so much. In fact, there wouldve been tens of thousands of french civilian casualties of the war become a chemical war. U. S. Army drafty standards during the Second World War are progressively lowered for the drafting of what were known as physically imperfect men. So for example, when the draft began in earnest in 1942, you had to have at least 12 of your natural 32 teeth in order to be drafted. By 1944, how many teeth does you have to have to be drafted . Zero. And that is because the army in the navy had drafted one third of all dentists in america and collectively they extracted 16 million teeth and filled 68 million more than made two and a half million sets of dentures, all to allow those draftees to be able to masticate the army ration. I know it sounds like an obscene act, but that was the standard. By 1940 four, a man could be drafted with 2400 vision if it was correctable to 2040 in one eye. You could be drafted. The vision standards have eroded so badly the old bromide in the army didnt examine them. You could be drafted if you were blind in one eye, death in one air, missing both ears. When the draft began they kept the no aerial disease kept many soldiers out of the army but that restriction to was soon lifted and the army was drafting 12,000 the deep patience a month. Most of them syphilitic. How could they do that . Penicillin. An extraordinary discovery of a british scientist in the had 1920s been converted into an extraordinary industrial project by the american and the british so that a substance that had been made originally by that gram was soon named by the kilogram and eventually by the ton. Why these extreme measures to fill the ranks . It was because of the crying need for soldiers, especially infantrymen and especially riflemen. Even a country of 130 million, we were running out. The war remains brutal and voracious to the very and. In april 1945, the last four months of the war in europe, almost american soldiers were 11 million killed in action in europe. Thats nearly as many as died in june 1944, the month of the invasion. It was awful virtually to the last gunshot. So desperate was the American Army for infantrymen that the high command taken action that had been absolute unthinkable just a few months before. They allow black soldiers to volunteer for duty as infantrymen in weight unit. 53 platoons of colored infantry were integrated into above an otherwise allwhite divisions. Many of those africanamerican soldiers surrender sergeant stripe they had earned as cooks and drivers and laborers for the privilege of being rifled. Very many other surprises and discoveries in this saga. I found that the Franklin Roosevelt library in hyde park new york, for example a detailed account written by the atlanta funeral home director who had prepared Franklin Roosevelt body for burial when the president died at warm springs georgia on april 12, 1945. The document is as powerful in and as moving as it is critical. After several hours spent injecting six bottles of embalming fluid into the president s veins and arteries this mortal russian mortician handed him a comb and have him comb the president s hair just so. John updike once said that world war ii was the 20th centurys central myth. He called it a tale of stories. Angles are infinite and his central figures never fail to amaze us. I believe the narrative historians true calling is to bring back the dead. I try to do that not only with the outside familiar with the eisenhowers patents of the war but also others who are thus familiar like general Ted Roosevelt junior. Even amid the clash of army groups, my eyes always drawn to the particular small tragedy that eliminates the larger catastrophe. So for example, i tell the story of the death of the son of general alexander patch, a young captain named mac patch. I tell it through the letters that general patch and his wife exchange to each other. And theyre unspeakably heartbreaking. Young captain patch has been wounded in normandy. Hes recuperating under his fathers command in Southern France. His mother writes to general patch, baking her husband not to let him go back into combat teams. He goes back into combat in october 1944 and is killed almost immediately. General patch rights to his wife and says i cannot and must not allow myself to dwell upon our irreparable loss. As i write, the tears are falling from my eyes and we must obey. How many families in the Second World War had similar sentiments . I tell the story of the suicide of admiral don p moon. He had commanded the naval forces landing at utah beach on june 6, 1944 and shortly before the invasion of Southern France, where he was also to have a largest possibility. He blew his brains out in the cabinets flagship in harbor. The stress and unhinged him and the suicide note that he left for his wife and four children is really devastating. Part of it red what am i doing to you my wife and dear children . I am sick, so sick. I mentioned that the United States had a population during world war ii of about 130 million. Ms. Burton 16,115,566 into uniform during the war. Of those, there were about 1. 5 million veterans still alive, my father among them. They are leaving us at the rate of more than 40,000 a month. Its almost 1500 a day now. The number of surviving American Veterans of world war ii will slip the low 1 million just about this Time Next Year and in 2024, the number of survivors will drop below 100,000 in 2036, the last year for which government demographers has made calculations, the number of survivors of the most distraught of war in Human History and the United States will drop below 400, less than half the size of an infantry battalion. This country suffered less than any other major belligerent. We emerged from the war with iran is still based not only in tact, but driving. We emerged from the war with two thirds of the worlds gold supplier, with clinical energy is a great sense of optimism and hope in the future. But about 400,000 americans died during the war. 291,000 were killed in action and of those killed in action, all south of those occurred in europe in that last year. In 1947, the next of kin of all americans who had died and whose bodies had been recovered overseas, and i was nearly everyone who went died in the pacific or atlantic theaters. Those next of kin were given a onetime opportunity to choose whether or not to bring their dead sons, and they were mostly sons, to bring them home or to leave them. About 40 chose to leave their boys overseas and about 60 brought them home. Across the United States government 564. 50 per eggs emission exumation regardless of the ultimate disposition of the body, something only a rich victorious nation could afford. Every grave was opened by hand and the remains of every dead soldier dusted with an embalming compound Aluminum Chloride and , plaster of paris. They were then placed in a metal casket with a satin pillow. Labor strikes in the United States had caused a shortage of casket steel and there is also a shortage of licensed embalmers. The dead accumulated in warehouses. Finally, the ss joseph viacom v. Connely sailed with more than 5000 soldiers in her hold. On october 27, 1947, the connolly birth in new york and stevedores whinge the caskets. These thats how the dead came home. But what about their belongings . What about things they carried . Even before the dead came home, these things had been coming home at a large warehouse in hardesty avenue in kansas city. The u. S. Army affects bureau had begun as a modest quartermaster enterprise with only a halfdozen employees in february 1942. That expanded to more than a dozen workers. By august 1945, bearing handling 6000 shipments a month, each leg each laden with the effects of american dead from six continents. Hour after hour, day after day shipping containers were unloaded from the rail freight cars that pulled up to the siding next to that warehouse in hardesty avenue. They were pulled onto the receiving dock and hoisted by elevators. Here, they went through the crates to extract pornography ammunition, perhaps amorous , letters from a girlfriend you did want a grieving widow to be to see. Workers use grinding stones in dentist drills to remove corrosion and blood stains from uniforms. And the containers worked their way by Assembly Line down to the seventh floor and finally a detailed inventory of the sex was end and stacked in a storage bin and all the while a large adjacent room banks of typists are banging out letters. 70,000 letters a month. And the gist of those letters was this, dear sir, dear madam we have your dead sons stuff. Where should we send it . Over the years, the affects bureau found many thing, tapestries, enemy swords, a german machine gun and italian accordion, tobacco sa