And to keep up with our latest history news. The seven days anniversary of the german surrender to allies in 1945. Next author Rick Atkinson examines the last year of world war ii in europe in his book, the guns at last flight. He focused on the National Mall in 2013. This is about 45 minutes. Now to our author and speaker, writ rick attkisson. It is my personal misfortune that i arrived too late to work with him. He is rightly regarded as one of the most distinguished journalists of our time. His talents as a writer and a reporter, and unparalleled expertise in military affairs were a gift to the post and our readers. With his latest book, rick reminds us again that his he continues in different form, as a historian. The guns at last light is the final installment in his trilogy about world war ii. He dedicated nearly 15 years of his life to these three remarkable volumes. Alled the liberation trilogy a masterpiece of deep reporting and rich the New York Times review calls the children ethic calls it at that again this finale a tapestry of richness and complexity. The Washington Post reviewer described the process achingly sublime. Now its 877 pages, but the reviewer noted while saying this is a very long book this one seemed too short. In a recent interview with the National World war ii museum, rick remarked on the necessity of remembering and telling the story of this sort what he called the greatest selfinflicted catastrophe in Human History. 60 million dead one life snuffed out every three seconds for six years. Rick added of more than 60 million American Veterans of world war ii if you than 2 million remain alive. When i contemplate what is lost as culturally as they slip into the shadows at the rate of 800 a day, foremost perhaps is the ability to bear witness, to tell the story firsthand, to attest to the authenticity and authority why they fought suffered and died. Further stories told and retold, countless others will now go untold. So is the primary storytellers die off, its important for survivors for us to sustain the story to keep it a vivid narrative that lives and breathes rather than some being rapidly receding into the past with every diminishing power to stir us. Rick atkinson has done more than almost anyone to sustain the story to give a continued life. For that, we can all be grateful. I am proud to introduce Rick Atkinson. [applause] 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. 15 years ago i took what i found what inspired me was the Second World War. The war lasted 3174 days and i began with 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 byebye 1945 you would be dead. 14 of the soviet population of 190 million perished during the water. 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 were the war 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 but reddish american troops for the invasion of sicily. In july of 1943 unanswered mainland italy places like salerno, the repeater river and see how, the vulture now rather than onto the liberation of rome on june 4, knight and 44. Well, this third volume the final panel opens on may 5th team 1944 at st. Paul school 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 stotts 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 on a hot 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 their spirits. And for the next 12 to yours, detail unspooled that these places than others, the less paris, but her can for us. Nine aikin arnon. The battle of the bulge the encirclement of the rower and final drive to pick every day on may 8, 1945. As in the first two volumes and would periodically shift from a tactical thought fulvio to a higher ed ruby can see operational and 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 us a recount of some of Southern France in august 1944 as well as the subsequent drop of around river valley by french and american troops and the per show matches to capture strasbourg and to reach the rhine in november 1944 at 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 the carrot terser fantastic. Alexander patch and the Army Commander a general named john who is beyond. U. S. Described by one of his admiral of actions and a lot would often appear in the middle of the night were his soldiers are sleeping and would roar row we cannot not. But if he 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 normandie if you know the beaches are going to be heavily defended. How are you going to get ashore by air, by parachute or bake later. Someone or posed how about taking a time out under the English Channel . And so there was a study done at the officers who reported back to the handset can do this. It will take 15,000 miners a year to excavate 50,000 tons of spoil but we can do that. But they couldnt finance, what they could never forget out 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 160000 tons of chemical weapons in england and the mediterranean in case the were 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, to plans for Chemical Warfare in normandie. Both of them had been approved by eisenhower. The first is predicated on caring about french civilian casualties. The second plant 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 the dead to sin america and collectively they extracted 16 million teeth and build 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. In 1944. In newest correctable to 2040 in one eye. The vision standards have eroded so badly that deal bromide the army did examine how just counted them had come churros if you are blinded in one eye, just in one manner and if youre messing those external yours. You could be drafted if youre messing night, or Three Fingers on one hand and reading your trigger finger. When the draft began they kept many soldiers out of the army but that restriction to a certain restricted in the army soon drafted in 1944 12080 patients a month most of them syphilitic. How could they do that . Penicillin. An extraordinary discovery of a burger scientist in the 1920 is had been converted into an extraordinary industrial project by the american and the british said that a substance that had been made originally by that graham was soon named by the kilogram and eventually by the time. 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 grits did run out. The war remains brutal and voracious to the very and. In april 1945, the last four months of the war in europe, almost 11 dozen american soldiers were 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 mississauga. 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 and the president died at warm springs georgia on april 12, 1945. The document is as powerful in his minivan as it is clinical. After several hours spent injecting six bottles of embalming fluid into the president s veins and arteries this partition summer arthur prettyman, the president s balloting handed him a call and then had called the president s hair just told. 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 with their size, and astra talladega. Theatrical day our. I believe the narrative historians tru 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 a generous Ted Roosevelt junior emotion triscuit junior. Even amid the clash of army groups my eyes always drawn to the particulars mall 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 normandie. 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 and. He goes back into combat in october 1944 and is killed almost immediately. General patch rights to his ways in me says i cannot and must not allow myself to dwell upon our irreparable loss. As i write the tears are falling from my eyes prominence decrees that we must obey. How many families in the Second World War had similar sentiments i tell the story of the suicide her admiral don p. Noonan who 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 large responsibility, 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 a read, what am i doing to you my wife in your children . I am sick so sick. I mentioned that the United States had a population during world war ii of about 130 million. What the 16150,566 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 live in. Overseas in one of about two dozen american battles on the case. About 40 chose to leave their boys overseas and about 60 brought them home. Across the United States government 564. 50 per explanation 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 of for not hide, Aluminum Chloride and plaster of paris. They were then plays in a metal casket with a side hello. Labor strikes in the United States had caused a shortage of cat visio and there is also a shortage of life embalmers. The debt accumulated in warehouses at cardiff ensure board and elsewhere. Finally the ss joseph viacom might come in the first to 21 go ships from europe and the pacific sailed with more than 5000 soldiers in her hold it on october 27, 1947 the connolly birth in new york and stevedores whinge the caskets are a hold of specially designed slayings to buy two mps dead and those of father he can make great diaspora across the republic for burial in their hometown cemeteries and national cemeteries. Thats how the dead came home. But what about their belongings . What about things they carried . Even before the debt came home these things had been coming home at a large warehouse i