I am first Stephanie Mcdaniel and i am professor of english and the graduate dean at jackson state university. And welcome to our panel entitled World War Two from the air. The sponsor for this panel is the university of southern mississippi dell center for the study of war and society, with representatives for our sponsor. Please stand at this time. Lets thank our sponsors. Moderator for this session is Marshal Ramsey marshal a nationally recognized editorial cartoonist, shares his cartoons and travels the state as a mississippi. 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 of several books. He is a two time pulitzer finalist and was named a top 100 employee of gannett. Marshall, take it away. Thanks. Yeah. A couple of housekeeping notes. If you do not turn off your phone, i will draw a cartoon about you. And it it will not be ready just to let you know that. And also, two of them, tom clement, was supposed to be with us today, and he had a tragedy in his family. And we all just want to send our prayers to him and his family. Theyre going through a tough time. And so thats why its just two of us today. And im very thrilled to have the panel that i have today. Ive gotten to know them a little bit over the last few days. Ive been a big fan of james and scotts work and of him. Ive interviewed him a few years ago, and so i will do the whole basically the bio thing and just a half second here, but ill talk to him. Got to know kevin this week too. And i think youre in for a real treat today. So the structure of the day is were going to do this kind of chronologically because were going to cover the air war from 1943, the summer over germany, over europe, and then were going to move over to the pacific toward the end of the war. And i think thats important because the whole nature of air warfare totally changed in that time. We went from, of course, the bomber mafia in strategic bombing. We could hit a Pickle Barrel from five miles up with the norden bombsight to lets just burn the whole place down. And so were going to kind of go through that evolution a little bit, and im very excited, like i said, to have the guess. Kevin mauer sitting here right next to me, hes an Award Winning journalist and a three time New York Times best selling coauthor. His books include the massively successful no easy day, the inside story of the bin laden raid, which he cowrote with Navy Seal Mark owen for the last 11 years, hes worked as a freelance writer covering war politics and general interest stories, and his writing has been published in gq mens journal, the daily beast, the washington post, the rolling stone, and many other publications as well. His latest book is this right here. It is lucky. Its the chronicle of the service of one major, john lucky luck. I do. Hes retired. Hes 100th bomb group. The bloody 100 from the eighth air force and youre going to get to know a little bit about lucky in just a minute. Hes an incredible, incredible man. James, on the other side is a former nieman fellow at harvard and is the author of the new book black snow. Black snow, which is right here. I look, i cant recommend both these books any more than im going to recommend them. But i think youre going to understand at the end of this, this is black snow. It is not out yet. However, you can buy it here at the book festivals so you can get it and you can get it signed. When we do the signing up in just a little bit, he also his book about the firebombing. This is about the firebombing of tokyo in the road to the atomic bomb. His last book is rampage. It was named on the best books of 2018 by the editors of amazon. Kirkus and military times. It was chosen as a finalist for the prestigious Gilder Lehrman prize for military history by the New York Historical society. His other work, target tokyo. You probably have seen that if you havent, and youve missed a great book because it was a 2016 Pulitzer Prize finalist. He also wrote the war below and the attack on liberty, which won the rear admiral Samuel Eliot Morrison award. Scott loses his wife, his two children. Hes from south carolina. And im very glad to have both of them here in mississippi today, because mississippi has a great tradition of aviation as well. Gentlemen, thank you so much. And kevin, i guess well just go ahead and get started with you. I number one, if you were a fiction writer and you created a character named lucky lucky. I do. I would think it was completely overthetop. But then if you described lucky in your book, i wouldnt believe it. But he is one of the most unbelievable men in the world. And whats so great about it, he still is because hes hes still with us and hes still driving around dallas right now at 100 years old. But tell everybody a little bit about lucky because lucky is truly the hero of your your book. Its that you see the war through his eyes. And its a very powerful story. So i mean, lucky. Lucky. Who is exactly . That is if you made him up in fiction, you would you wouldnt let me write it. An editor would have cut him out. Hes a tall, lanky, 100 year old man who in july of last year drove me around dallas for a weekend, and i never felt like i was in danger. And that that says a lot. The thing about lucky, though, is hes got such a unique story in that he was, you know, his dad lost everything at the crash. Dad was a stockbroker. And he sort of came from a family. That was, you know, was a little broken in tennessee. And he worked his way, he and his best friend, sully, to to understanding and wanting to be great pilots. And i think this is really a story where and i think were going to talk a lot about you know, precision bombing and these aircraft. What i was really trying to do with them, lucky, was try to put you put a human into this storyline because so much of the air war, theyve got great aircraft, right . Like the b17 is a cool plane. The b29 is a cool plane. The vtwin 89 and the b17 have this legacy which i hope we get it, too, because, you know, when the war starts, the b17 is almost obsolete. But so much of what we what we remember about the air war and World War Two is all about the aircraft. And so my goal with them, luckey, was to try to make you sit with lucky in the cockpit and go through the horror, because the more i talk to the man and the more he told me his story, the more i marvel that he climbed into that cockpit ever when, you know, was this start with, you know, 1943. So hes hes in england. Hes getting ready to fly. Hes literally doing the checklist on the aircraft because literally his life depends on his aircraft. Every hes facing his mortality, every time he steps into his plane. But there were like four Different Things that he would have to face that could have met his demise on every flight. Right. Lucky likes to tell the story every time they climbed in the aircraft, which were unpressurized. So its 40 degrees up there. He will face four things. Fear fighters, flak and freezing right. So if you think about it, first thing, just getting into that aircraft was a was a feat was was bravery personified because you know, youre the the the race or the the stat basically if you climbed into that aircraft, theres a good chance if after the 12th mission youre on borrowed time. If you can get to 12 missions, youre youre a really lucky guy. So the attrition rate was was ridiculous. So he faced that every time they would go out with you know, a room like this full of crews in the morning and you come back to, you know, two or three crews every time they lost to be 17. That was ten men. So, you know, you lose, you know, you could do the math, right . And they would go up with, you know, two, 300 at a time, 100 positive would come back with 55 planes. Okay. So the the the that alone, i dont know how he did it. And we talked a lot about why did you get back in that plane . How did you get back in the plane . And his thought was, well, i was there. It was my job. Im sort of stuck. I couldnt get out of it now. And so that became a really motivating factor of doing it for his teammates. And then once youre in the air, youre freezing, right . We i flew into yesterday looking out the window and i every time i fly now, i think about what it would be like to fly at 25, 30,000 feet with without a pressurized aircraft right there in the elements they need the oxygen, the the sweat would freeze off their faces when they had to use the bathroom. They would they would urinate in a condom that would freeze solid until they actually got down in altitude. So this was one of the harshest environments. And what were to to fight in on top of the fact that, you know, you were thousands of feet in the air and so youre fighting all of that as you get to germany and you faced a lewthwaite, which in 43 at this point had fought against the british, they fought against the russians. And they were really good at this. And they were fighting for their homeland. And so they were a professional organization fighting. Its lucky youll appreciate this First Mission were talking about it with and i said, well, you know, you didnt have any combat experience. Did you go around the base and talk to some other crews about, you know, what to expect, what to think about, some tips to survive . And he said, now, who was i going to talk to . None of us had any combat experience, that First Mission. So they were they had no idea what they were facing. And they were learning it on the fly as they were losing men. But in droves. So the fighters were were very effective. But the flip side, though, and i got this from a great german quote, the flip side was the germans were also trying to figure out how to fight these giant formations of b17s. They werent even they werent sure how to attack them, which is where you get to 12 00. I am very familiar with the 12 00 high. There was a movie also essentially the only place to attack the the b17. And until they make a modification was to attack it head on. So when they would fight each other, it was basically a game of chicken. 3 seconds, thats fighters would scream past you. But the german theres a great quote by one of the german aces who came up with the whole idea of attacking them head on. He said, when you fight against the russians or the russians or you fight against some spitfires, the british, he said, its kind of fun. He said it when you turn in on a formation of a b17, so your whole all your sins flash in front of your eyes. So even they were like, this is this is tough. So the war over over europe at that point from fighters and bombers was was was a war of attrition. And its its well get to this, i think. But eventually the reason why the americans win is not because theyre more skilled or theyre in any way. They just we could make bombers and cruise train crews faster than the germans could keep up. Yeah, that was the difference between the b17 g and the h. They put a gun in the front to be able to shoot back at the fighters when they came back. Thats the only reason if you guys are familiar, that b17 with the chin turret, the two guns in the front, the only reason those guns are there is to shoot the planes as they come in. That was the last thing they had to do was flak in german or hitler was obsessed with flak. He loved it. They all they had one of the best in aircraft guns in the 88 millimeter. And then they also had they would steal flak guns as they would. So as they overran russian positions on the eastern front, they would drag those guns, the russian guns back and go flak alone took down more bombers than the fighters. And that then what was jarring about that is there was there was you didnt at first they would try to dodge the flack but they realized statistically it was easier to fly through it, which well get into with your guys. So what they did is they would fly through this maelstrom of smoke and fire and shrapnel in a plane that did not have any armor. And you basically were rolling the dice to try to get through it. And when they got over the target for a guy like lucky who like to fly the plane, the he would turn over control to the bombardier and hed have to just sit there and a maelstrom of flak and hope that the bombardier they wouldnt get hit as they got across. So those were the four big things that every time he climbed to the aircraft, he was faced. One of the things that just amazed me because it was seem to be such a stupid decision was that when they were in the states, they decided to switch out all the copilots with the crew. So you built this bond with the crew and then suddenly youre stuck in with a new crew. And that really caused lucky a lot of problems because he was not well received when he first came with his crew. Youre right. And lucky would agree with you. So heres what happened. The 100th bomb roof was not a they had a bit of a hiccup. They had a final Training Exercise before they were to be certified to go to england. And they got lost. They were supposed to fly. I forgot exactly where theyre supposed to fly, but they ended up separated all over the country, and so they got stuck going back to training and what the air force, the air corps realized was a lot of the copilots that they had in the hundreds had as many hours as some of the lead pilots and other squadrons. So the air force said, well, look, were going to take these experienced copilots, make them lead pilots elsewhere, and were going to bring a whole new class of copilots in. Well, the crews were kind of upset about this because basically they like like you said, that they had fought together. They trained together. And it was sort of a jinx. A lot of the crews looked at this like, now youre its a jinx. Youre putting this new guy in. So when lucky gets to the bond group, he won his crew hates his guts because they think hes a jinx. They really like the copilot and too, hes never flown a b 17. Hes the biggest plane he ever flew, was too injured. So he learned to fly the b 17 as they did their final training to go over to england. And i think when he got to england, he had a 40 hours or 30 hours of stick time. That was it. He learned it on the fly the whole way. You know, obviously lucky, you know, a lot of that luck was just dumb luck, right . I mean, you didnt know when a shell was going to go off or you didnt know when you know of the shell from a you know, a fighters going to hit you. But lucky also made his own luck, too. He was a very good pilot. There were just a lot of things about him. Tell us a little bit about him as a person and him as a pilot that helped create situations that allowed him to be able to survive. I mean, several of the missions. I mean, look, its funny, i was in savannah for memorial day and for those whove read the book are going to read the book they dedicated a plaque to just lucky, his best friend sully and savannah. And so i took my my ten year old 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, sits down and my ten year old, he was nine and sits down in the copilot seat and for an hour and some change. They went through the whole thing to the point where at one point my son me is like, i think we can take off. Im going to get some fuel on this thing. But lucky spent 2 hours in this thing and what you saw when watching him talk to my son and watching him teach my son about what all the instruments did and how to fly this aircraft was, that he was meticulous. He was a professional at everything. And i think he deep down loved to fly. But what i think the luck he made was that he was just really good at it and he was really dedicated to the job he had to do it. And i think its a testament to sort of his professionalism, his bravery and his service that he his those those attributes probably saved his crew more than more than he would probably ever admit. Yeah, he didnt he didnt seem to panic. He just focused on the job at hand. And that did pay off several times a little bit. You mentioned sully. That was his best friend. And they both wanted to go off and go fight with the british and raaf and so forth and that part of it, its like a separate part of the story, but its really powerful because you get to see london through their eyes and you get to hear the story and just tell a little bit about. So there was some research that you were able to do at the university of tennessee, chattanooga, that lucky was able to be part of which i think had to be just a gift to him. So sully and lucky i made this up, hed be like, come on sully. Lucky were two guys. They were in a fraternity. They were going to the university of chattanooga, and they both had an idea that they thought that at some point the u. S. Is going to get this war. And they wanted to be fighter pilots, and so they applied fly for the Royal Canadian air force. Their applications were accepted, except they had to get assigned off by their parents because they were under 18. Sully is interesting guy. His father was wounded during the war during world war one by a german gas attack and eventually dies after sully is born. So sully just has his mother so lucky. And sully got to to sell his mom. So his mom says, if you feel like you need to do this, ill sign it. She signs it like hes like, im in going to canada. Were going to be fighter pilots. He goes back to his house. His mother says, well, i dont like the idea, but if your father signs it, youll be fine. And his father was called the colonel. That was his nickname. He was a horse guy, liked to bet on the horses. The colonel gets home, takes one look at this application is like youre an idiot and doesnt refuse to sign it. So sully, though, goes and he ends up going to the Royal Canadian air force and they lose touch until about midway through luckys tour in england. And sully shows up in a spitfire, and they they rekindle their their friendship. He flies with lucky in a bomber and mocks lucky for being a bus. Lucky then flies, speak the spitfire and realizes that hes to die. If he if he doesnt land this thing fast, and then 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. They had it in their archives and lucky had never read it. So we were able to i was able to give lucky this sort of insight into his best friend and all the things that that sully did leading up to when he finally met up. Im lucky ag