His time during the war, he said i would lie down on my cot at night and i had a 45 automatic under each side of my pillow in case the japanese called in at night to attack us. And then finally, one marine grunt on one of the islands told this story. He said im a roman catholic, ive been to Holy Communion and all kinds of environments and places in this war but he said i was in the most singular one ive ever seen. He said, i heard that over in the clearing there was going to be a mass said and we could receive communion and he said i went over and he said the priest had his communion set out on top of a flat rock with a piece of wood holding it up at a level place and leaning next his was his flag that showed it was a christian flag showing were having a service. But he said leaning next to that was an m1 car m1 rifle. And he said, i said, whats with this rifle. He said, oh, well im not a combatant, but we are allowed to have weapons to kill snakes. The marine said, i wonder how he defined snake, but i decided to receive communion and not go any farther with it. That was one of the interest side lights. These are not thinks that i think most chaplains would celebrate and recommend, but it happened. And these chaplains were also very human in other ways. They witnessed a lot of carnage. They helped corpsmen and medics put guys back together if they could. They buried tens of thousands of people. How do you overcome this . Combatants who are out there have a hard time with battle fatigue. What about the chaplains . The truth is, the chaplains didnt have anyone to turn to. They did not have someone else to go to for the most part. Some of them carried those burdens home. There was one chaplain, im not going to mention his name, but i know his son. His son told me dad came home from the war and he had served ably with an Infantry Division in world war ii. He was in a lot of combat. He said, he seemed to survive well, he came home. Three weeks after he was back in his pulpit, he stood up one sunday morning, hed been preaching for about three minutes. He said all of a sudden, he began to weep, he began to shake and he fell in a puddle on the floor. He was diagnosed as having posttraumatic stress disorder that no one was even aware that he had because he tried to carry it alone and there seemed to be no one to talk to. But he went on valiantly. After a few weeks of rest and recuperation and some counselling, he went back to ministry and continued ministry for the rest of his life. We have no idea how many other things bothered him. May i take time for one more illustration before the q a, doctor . Thank you. Theres a little known thread of history in fact, i didnt know this story until a few weeks ago and i was asked to review a new book that came out. The title of the book is mission in nuremberg. Its a book written by a u. S. Army chaplain in world war ii. Its an unusual story. It just shows me that every time you think you know a lot about whats going on in history, there are dimensions you dont know. There is so much more history than there are history januarys. When the war ended in europe, the commander who oversaw the nurembe nuremberg trials had 21 highranking nazis. He had 21 naz sis who were going to be put on trial. And this american colonel decided that these germans ought to have chaplains. That it would be good if he could find two chaplains fluent in german, one who was lutheran because most protestants in germany were lutherans and one who was roman catholic. So he called upon two highly decorated, highlyrespected men who were fluent in german. Henry garriky was a missouri lutheran who grew up in southern missouri and had been in a germanspeaking family. There was a chaplain priest. He agreed to stay behind and so did henry. They decided to stay behind and minister to these guys that were on trial. Four of them would be acquitted. 11 ultimately were lynched. The others were given long prison terms. It never occurred to me what the two chaplains had to go through. Many of the american soldiers, including highranking officers said, we shouldnt give these nazis any comfort. They shouldnt have our chaplains. We dont want them to stay there. There was great pressure on these two men not to say. Oconnor was a priest. Catholic priest, he didnt have a family back home waiting for him, a wife and children. But henry had a wife and three sons that he hadnt seen for other two and a half years and hes being asked to stay and minister to the enemy. This is his great dilemma. His family wants him to come home. And what does he do . Finally, as he put it, he prayed through and felt that the lord said to him, i died for all men and women, i want you to tell them what ive done for them and give them an opportunity to come unto me. Chaplain oconnor said very little about what the men that he worked with said or went through. He had a very high view of the stole and the fact that confession and discussion shouldnt be told. Garriky didnt say a whole lot. He said enough to say this. He said three or four of the men gave their lives to jesus christ and went and went and prayed for days on end seeking forgiveness for their sins. And he said i assured them he is faithful and just to forgive you and cleanse you from all unrye chestness. They went back to the states, lived out their careers and their lives with peace in their hearts that they had done the right thing given biblical guidelines. I tell you, a lot of people in the United States never for gave them. They got hate mail over the years for what theyd done. With that, ill wrap up and say nothing is simple, things are difficult, and even the greatest of the greats have a lot of agonizing choices to make. Thank you for your attention. [ applause ] i have a twopart question for you. Number one is, one of the commandments says thou shall not kill. Was that edited to, thou shall not do murder . And also part of the chaplains in captured germany playing the role of mayor. The second part of that question, i couldnt quite hear. In the book, i jump with my boots on yes. Arch bishop wore combat boots, he was mayor of a city in germany. They said the Catholic Priest would be obeyed by the german populous. Let me deal with your first question. One of the big issues that faced American Service men and women in world war ii and one of the chaplains had to deal with personally and then help the combatants deal with, you have a commandment says thou shall not kill, wed just come off of world war one where most of the seminaries in this country and most of the germ unanimous iss, they dont want anything to do with another war. In fact, they insist we wont be in another war. Thats why we got caught with our guard down because Public Opinion that even flowed through the senate and congress was so strong that if we hadnt had a present like roosevelt who was determined to help our allies and get us prepared even though we werent supposed to be prepared, we probably couldnt have come back quickly. But this was the dilemma. How do you live out turn the other cheek . How do you live that out . And i think the way that they sorted it out, and people had to sort it out their own way, thou shall not kill means you dont just wantonly murder other people. Scripture has guidelines of holy wars. Most chaplains thought those a guy drafted being prepared to go and being taught how to kill men, hes got to be taught that maybe maybe you ought to turn the other cheek in certain circumstances, but you have a responsibility to protect your wife and your children. You have a responsibility to protect your family. And arch Bishop Hannon who i never met, but i have read his things. I just recently read a book that was given to him, my wife bought it on ebay. He was a valiant guy and a noble guy. But thats a real dilemma. And some people have a hard time. One of the things they came home with after combat was the depression of having killed a lot of people. My uncle was in the 142nd mobile gun battalion. He told me, mercifully, i didnt see most of the people i killed. The infantry saw the people they killed. He said, i didnt have to see it and im glad i did it. Any other questions . Any other thoughts . I think were out of time, but i appreciate your attention. Thank you for coming. [ applause ] heres some of the highlights for this weekend. Friday at 8 00 p. M. Eastern a history tour looking at the civil war. Saturday, we visit a Technology Fair on capitol hill. Sunday, former president ial candidate pat buchanan. Books on hillary clinton, president obama and edward snowden. Saturday at 10 00 p. M. Eastern, the weekly standards daniel helper. And sunday morning, we tour the literary sites of casper, wyoming. And friday night, the neo leagues kansas city monarchs. Saturday, on the civil war, the depiction of slavery in movies. And sunday at 4 00 p. M. , an interview with president herbert hoover. Call us at 2026263400. Join the cspan conversation. Like us on facebook. Follow us on twitter. Now on American History tv prime time, author Dennis Okerstrom talks about his book, project nine, the birth of the air commandos in world war ii. Together with british troops, they invaded japanese occupied burma in 1944. Mr. Okerstrom is joined by three of the original air commandos who talk about their experiences during the war. This was hosted by the kansas city public library. Well, let me tell you what to expect tonight. Im going to talk to you a little bit about this little known organization known as the First Air Commando group. Going to show you some photos. Ill give you a condensed version of how they came to be. If theres time, i might read a few excerpts from that book, just enough to give you the flavor of this rather unusual bunch of Young American warriors. Then im going to ask three of the veterans to join me on the ag stage. Ill introduce them at that time. Im going to ask them just a few questions to kind of jump start the conversation. And at some point, im just going to turn it over to you all and let you have a conversation with these pretty incredible guys. This book project nine ask the result of a lot of research from all over the country. I wont go into that, but i was able i was lucky enough to be able to interview several of the the remaining veterans of that campaign of so long ago in burma. Pretty remarkable bunch. They started by a guy named hap arnold at the behest of Franklin Roosevelt who was requested by a guy named churchill. Winston, i think, was his first name. And let me just kind of take you through some of these photos and well see what happens here. I think i remember how to operate this. By the way, there were some of these flers out there. I dont know if you all got any. If you didnt, i dont know what to tell you. I dont have anymore. It tells you a little bit about this book. Project nine, birth of the air commandos in world war ii. Published by the university of missouri press. And let me just point out to you that if you call this number or order online and give them the secret code of afs 14. Youll get 20 discount. Thats six bucks. Okay. So let us begin. For those of you who are a really sharp eye, you might take a look at that numeral one. What can i say . These guys were young guys a long way from home. Thats all. Im not going to say anything else. There were three main figures in this air commando operation. The first was Major General wingate. Thats him on the left. Wingate was brilliant. He was eccentric. He was the leader of a group known as the british chindits. You can look that up and see what that means. Its not dirty. And then theres phil cochran who was charming. He was also the real life character for if you remember the strip terry and the pirates. Colonel flip corkin, thats phil cochran. There he is. Johnny allison was a little pinedsized guy. He was a daring fighter ace. He had seven victories over japanese planes flying with the 14th air force. He was considered a natural pilot. There were some others. There was a movie star turned glider pilot. His name was flight officer jackie coogan. Starred with charlie chaplain in the kid and a whole lot of others. There were another one of these pilots named dick cole. I dont know what i just did. Were going to go back. Were going to go back. I think i pushed the wrong button. No, im going backwards, im pretty sure. There it is. There it is. Okay. So thats dick. See if i can do it right this time. There. Okay. Yeah, hes here tonight. He is . I think i just went too far. And this guy, this handsome young man right there is here tonight. Thats patt meara. Looks like hes got a pretty good ride going for himself there. This guy, charlie turner. I was with him just last weekend. He was one of the glider pilots of this. You can kind of see the way these guys looked and acted. He called that hat his go to hell hat. Can i say that . Im not any good with this stuff because i just skipped one that i wanted to show you. I can do it. I know i can. Some of you baseball fans may remember a guy named john kelly buddy lewis. Yeah, he was an air commando pilot. By the way, i think it was the 1947 world series had a guy named de imagine yoe, another guy named williams and john kelly buddy lewis in the outfield for the 1947 alstar game. He was pretty good. Im not going to talk about you again patt. Im going to skip this. Sorry. And charlie. Okay. So this operation involved quite a variety of pilots. Front line pilots, service pilots, glider pilots. It was quite an interesting organization. They flew a variety of planes including 100 stinson l5. They had 12 b25 h mitchel medium 3w0bombers. Some of the people who were in the airplane when it fired said it sure felt like it stopped in midair, even if it didnt. They had 30 p51 a mustang fighters. This is the one with the allison engine, not the merlin. They had a dozen c47 sky trains that they used as glider tugs. They had 100 cargo gliders. That was a big thing. It looked a lot like a boxcar with big, fat ugly wings. You can get some idea of the size of it there. They called the flieder pilots that. It means no fan man. They didnt have any the front of the nose flipped up, the entire cockpit did. You could drive a jeep into them. You could load a small piece of arrest tillerry. 12 or 15 fully armed combat troops. And they had the four of these yr4 helicopters. They made the first combat rescues during their time in burma. They had 12 stinson l1 flying ambulances. Another dozen of these. Thats a really ugly plane, but i think it did some good. Of the 523 original air commandos, 300 of them were pilots. Those of you particularly who served know that thats an outray jously high number of pilots for the small number in that original unit. Ill just point out, heres dick cole, this is a guy named jake sarts. This is a guy named bill cherry. He was the pilot of the eighty that was flying rick enbacker around the pacific and they ended up having to ditch. They floated around for 24 days. I guess he didnt have enough of it because he came back to join the air commandos. Thats buddy lewis, the baseball player. Okay. Operation stop that. Operation thursday, im going to try to get it to go back. Operation thursday was launched from bases in india on march the 5th, 1944. C47s towed guide,700s towed gu 8,000 foothills and they landed behind japanese lines in burma. Oh, yeah, it was at night. But 15 minutes before launch, aerial photos showed that logs they originally had two places to go and logs were scattered across one of the two. They didnt think they could land there now. Allison on the left and wingate on the right, they decided we just need to go ahead and do this thing. I dont think the japanese will be waiting for us, but obviously we dont know. These are u. S. Pilots at a briefing just before they launched this operation known as thursday. These are some of those british chindits i was talking about. Theyre boarding one of the gliders on march the 5th, getting ready to go into japaneseheld burma. Yeah, they took mules along because wingate just kind of liked mules. He had done it earlier and they walked in. So the mules carried their heavy equipment. He just thought it would be a good idea, even being taken in by glider if they could have a few of those along as well. They ended uptaking close to 10,000 british troops and about 1,200 mules. They told them, as i said, on double tow in operation thursday. Here, you can see the two gliders being towed by that c47. Theres a you know, you drop them into this little clearing. Then you think, now, how am i going to get back out. They needed a lot of room to be able to take off a c47 with a glider towed behind it. So they worked out a thing called snatching gliders. Youll hear about that. Well have dick cole perhaps talk to you a little bit about that. It was a precision kind of a flight where they had to fly down and snag the tow rope and you can just imagine it was kind of a jack rabbit start for the guys in the glider because they went from zero to about a hundred in just a couple of seconds. Here is one of the gliders being towed over the chin hills. And im not positive, but i think theres a real good possibility that thats dick coles airplane. When they got there, it was at night. What looked like a really nice field at this clearing called broadway turned out to also have been full of ruts and logs and stumped and a few water buffalo and they wrecked almost every glider that went in. A number of people were killed. Many more were injured. But in the end, they were able to take in a small bulldozer and they made a Landing Strip out of nothing. The very next night, they began halling in c47 to land on that strip and bring in the remainder of all of those british troops and supplies. So despite the loss of the gliders, they celebrated the aerial invasion of ber ma that night. Herself Johnny Allison right here. Not a very big guy, but i think theyre laughing simply because they survived that one. There was a pretty good chance that they might not. Okay. So if youre interested in this book, you know, its here. I might leave this up for a little bit. Its also on the flier we passed out. Remember about that 20 discount, unless you just like to throw money away. Im going to read just a little bit. Ill let you meet these guys, i promise you. I promise you. But you have to put up with me for a little while. I told you that wingate was a little bit eccentric. You make up your mind. So hes being visited. This is in 1937. Hes been stationed in palestine and theyre having problems down there at that time. Epstein, who would become the israeli ambassador to the u. S. Was a young jewish activist in early 1937. His specialty was persian literature. He had been invited to a discussion with the new army captain. So hes there, he knocks on the door. Hes waiting and waiting. Finally, e he can hear people moving inside. Epstein knocked on the do