market in ways that they never had before. and they did that by larger portions of food and larger portions have more calories. if there's one point i would love to get across, that is there. it happened in the 1980s and they put food everywhere. if you live in new york, if you go to a drugstore, it's like a grocery store now. and there's food at bed bath and beyond, there's food at staples, is food everywhere and it used to be that libraries would not allow any kind of food anywhere near the library. now every library has a say in it. so we have different ways of selling food and we are human and humans eat when food is in front of us and the more times do we see food or day, the more

food that we eat. >> you can watch this and other programs at booktv.org. booktv covers hundreds of office programs dropped the country all year long area here's a here is a look at some of the events that we will be attending the week. look for these programs to air in the near future on booktv on c-span2. on tuesday we are at the harvard club on the report of russia's efforts to dominate world energy supply. the next evening at the university club in new york city and looking at the lower state taxation and economic prosperity with art laffer. then we are alive with the national book awards. on saturday and sunday, we are live from the 31st annual miami au pair with author panels and viewer call and with the likes of cornel west and john dean. that is some of the programs we will be covering this upcoming

week. visit upcoming programs for more. >> barrett tillman recounts the military exploits in world war ii during his talk on his book "forgotten fifteenth." this is about one hour and 15 minutes. >> good afternoon, i am barbara peters. sunday, october 12, and i'm delighted to welcome barrett tillman who has written over 40 books and i know that you have been here. were you kind of the expert? >> with steve i contributed to two original fiction anthologies at his request and steve has

just been marvelous as a friend and colleague and in 1984 our mutual publisher sent me a manuscript written by an aviator called for each other. in the publisher asked my opinion and i said that this book is no bed if you don't publish it, i will, and the next year it was published. so steve and i have kept in touch ever since among the village he was published and he came up with the concept for a military contractor that does work for the u.s. government all around the world. and that was the trilogy that was a fun change of pace for me because i had not done anything in that realm at that time. so that was an education. >> your wonderful writer.

and so you grew up flying airplanes, and where does all this aviation background come from? >> i'm in eastern oregon kid that grew up next to a cropdusting strip in my little bitty hometown in oregon. and airplanes were always overhead and that combined with the fact that my dad had been trained as a naval aviator in world war ii and i was there from infancy, i was blessed and i use that word because i was blessed to be able to help restore vintage airplanes and fly them. i guess overall i have had between five and $600 flying navy airplanes from the world war ii timeframe, that has been a tremendous benefit both in the history an infection. >> i'm sure that that is

beautiful. there's a lot of encyclopedic knowledge. i'm going to start talking about d-day and the encyclopedia which indicates it is in a date and probably, if i work it outright, to commemorate the anniversary of the june 6, 1944 d-day landings. >> that's right, the original book was published for the 60th anniversary and i woke up one morning and realize that oh, my goodness in 12 to 14 months we are going to have the 70th anniversary. so eventually i wound up doing an update. and the main difference between the original and this is bad

there are none of the historic figures still living now smack i haven't even thought about that. i was going to ask if there was new material that has come not from records release and things that would've changed some of the information that you had. >> i did expand upon a few of the entries and i know one had to do with intelligence from the allied side and a couple of others with entries or expanded on the basis of additional information and one of them have to do with the british and canadian navy and i found additional information on that. this has been very well received them as an author it's always interesting to me to get feedback from my readers. two of them who don't know each other said that this is a wonderful book because most of the entries are just the right-wing.

>> we safeguarded this yesterday. but one of the things that i thought was that i was born in 1940 and so i don't have any memory of the war or d-day other than my mother. but we talked about these figures in the years after the war and reading this is not just a refresher course but all of the personalities revealed things that you don't know when you're living through it in history, it's different than when you go back. >> that's right. >> vietnam was my war and now when i read about that, i think, why didn't i know that then. but you can't always tell. to one of the things that i thought was interesting is the personalities that you talked about and we had dwight eisenhower who is the supreme

allied commander and my question would the was either because he was a great general or because he was a great person at with just six or greater politics max maki was greater politics. the conventional wisdom for many years after the war was he was the one who held together the alliance and that is certainly an exaggeration. it's not as if the british and the french were going to take this and go home because they didn't like the fact that an american was a commander. the other aspect or sense america provided the huge majority of the manpower or the liberation of northwestern europe, it was a given that eisenhower or another senior american would be the overall commander. but in fairness his subordinates were both british and he was the

deputy commander and then the head of the navy in the air campaigns which were also british. so it was pretty much a balance between the anglo-american. >> it was certainly operation overlord in this sense. and you also talked about jimmy doolittle who was really an awful lot. >> i was very fortunate to get to know the general, as he likes to be known as general jimmy. and of course he came back to world dominance as verse two national prominence within april april 1942 bombing wave of tokyo and five other cities in that

area this includes twin-engine bombers from an aircraft carrier and that aspect of it worked and it turned out that they had to launch a few hundred miles earlier than expected where all the planes except for one ran out of fuel. that brought him up to brigadier general and he received the medal of honor and he was almost immediately sent to north africa when he learned the general business running the north african allied air forces. so by the time he came to italy in november of 1943, he was a known quantitive and he was only there two months before eisenhower who called him to britain to take over this air

force. >> so the weather didn't cooperate for d-day. you had very low cloud cover and you indicated that the bombers actually ended up eating too far back to really protect the people. >> that is right, what i found shows the normandy coast mostly east and west and the heavy bombers 30 mouse away or approaching had a perpendicular angle north to south. and the navy said we don't want the bombers dropping because it will in essence endanger the ships offshore. long story short, most of the bombs fell 1.5 to 3 miles behind the beaches and really didn't have benefit to the landing

troops. >> sometimes this is a real obstacle and they have a story about as well. are there really was no perfect day. >> well, it was originally scheduled and eisenhower agreed that they would have a 24 hour weather hold and then after that it was all or nothing because the next favorable tides and in phases will be downstream. >> isn't that amazing in the same way that oak ridge remained as well with social media and everything, there is no way that this ever could have existed. i find it fascinating and we will get it to this in a minute. john ford, white?

>> he was an individual and even though he had same with something that had nothing to do with naval subjects, he was one in maine and grew up on the coast and so the salt water was on his veins early on. when world war ii started he basically knocked on the navy's door and said here i am, make use of me. and he was given a directive as a lieutenant commander and he had visiting privileges almost everywhere. little known that he had a superb documentary that was made in june 1942 area and he's well-known for that documentary. but less well known is the fact that his film crew was aboard

the navy in coast guard ship off normandy and some of the combat footage that we see with tv documentaries were shot by his cameramen. >> i was fascinated to see that. my lord, he was certainly part of those warriors. lucky him that there is actually a warrior he was a man born to fight. >> yes, he was the senior commander in the british armed forces. born and bred in the scottish highlands. and if there hadn't been a war, he would have found a way to start one. he's a natural born warrior whose life would've been wasted in any other endeavor. even though he was merely wounded during the normandy campaign he received the last

rites in anticipation of death, he told a subordinate that he needs to get back into combat before the war ended. >> i'm sure he would wouldn't have, but it was fortunate that the tech allergy was apartment. ..

when france fell in june of 1940, the guard evacuated britain with tens of thousands of other free french and he became a significant factor in allied planning and i think the most wonderful statement made about him was from winston churchill who said the greatest cross i must bear is the products of million. >> somebody had to be running a french government when the germans were pushed back, they could actually function. and the goal was able to do that. most of us know enough about -- and i thought you could -- there was a lot of medical theories about, have this person or this

illness hadn't gone on and would have been different. and fdr in your judgment should not have run for a fourth term. >> you was done, a dying man. if you look at the film's especially from the conference about maybe six weeks before he died, that is a dying man and he really should have stepped down, but it was not in him to vacate the presidency. >> the reason was there was a paralysis when he was so l, but wasn't actually able and read things that said patton could have made it to berlin before the russians, he was unable to because there was basically no american functioning command from january to march when roosevelt died and truman was

kept out of things, so -- >> harry truman, a person who had heroic training for any of the role did an amazing job. think about some of the things he learned from the treaty of versailles they did not have a punishing training, all that stuff and roosevelt has such contempt for him he didn't take him into his confidence. >> it would have been fascinating to be a fly on the wall the day truman was inaugurated, i assume it was general marshall, the chief of staff, said mr. president, there's something you need to know about what is going on in mexico. >> and hitler, you give him a great point for being a great politician that none of us given points for being a great human being but a question always wondered and i think the same thing about napoleon, why? why russia? why couldn't they just stick to europe?

and be happy with that? may be that is not part of a personality like that. >> it is not. i think the one thing napoleon and hitler had in common was they believed their own pr. the bridge linking their own kool-aid. >> and alexander the great. >> was the same. >> the great captains of history typically overreached themselves, they're a victim of their own success. >> that is true. we talked about people, you give a lot of space to the various armed forces, land, sea and air dictate all three on the american, british and german front which i thought was fascinating, you talk about the weaponry, the kinds of planes and the kinds of guns and you give credit to two american gun designers, mr. browning, i don't remember the other one. >> mr. gerard. he was born a canadian and became a u.s. citizen and was an

employee of the u.s. army ordnance service and he stood about 12 years or so designing what became the m 1 semiautomatic rifle that meant the u.s. armed forces were the only ones in the second world war entirely equipped with a semiautomatic rifle. that made a big difference and her that men john browning made it more genius, utah mormon gunsmith's designed and held the patents on almost every automatic weapon that the united states used in the second world war from the browning automatic weapon to the light and heavy machine guns, and the fabulous 1911 kissel, which was in front

line service for 75 years and is still issued today. he was a true american genius. >> and also the guy who designed the landing craft. higgins. >> the higgins boat. >> i thought that was fascinating. >> he is another success story. established a privately-owned boat building company in new orleans and he anticipated before the navy the need for mass-produced landing craft in advance of not war but the next war. it is generically called the higgins' blood. initially the landing craft vehicle and personnel, then made it possible amphibious operations in every theater of action. >> you finally cleared up for me various things about the kinds of airplanes that were used. we all know about the beat 47,

the workers bomber. >> the newseum. >> but i had not realized the douglas aircraft, the c 47, became it was basically a passenger plane that they managed to turn into a personal carrier. >> that is right. it was the revolutionary douglas dc-3 airliner from the late to mid 1930s and the army air corps recognized this has tremendous potential not only as a transport on a cargo airplane but it can deliver paratroops, we could not have conducted the normandy campaign as we did without c 47s and fighters. >> like everybody did. and even though we won the war in the atlantic against overwhelming forces, not like 1943 or something. >> the turning point in the

battle of the atlantic came in may of 1943 when if you look at the chart, the number of thinkings of merchant vessels that we're taking supplies to britain, the bill but to d-day fell below the number of german submarines that were being sunk. so he essentially the battle of the atlantic was won 13 months before the day. >> the theme is the germans were better equipped and probably had better strategy, better training, everything else, once they develop the world wide theater because several times in the book you say they were too thin. they didn't have enough so basically, everything didn't fall to the war of attrition, and -- >> they did not have the sustainability allies did.

>> host: deception. the landing would not be in normandy, and the other beaches. >> guest: there was the lengthy, complex plan called bodyguard of lies was the definitive book on the subject. that was the plan to deceive the germans, and the logical crossing point, was 25 miles from calais across the channel. we turned from german intelligence agents and caught them and made them an offer it they can't refuse. feed false information to your

masters in germany, and 12 gentlemen, and that combined with signals intelligence and false information we knew the germans would intercept and decode and joyce patton was a big part of the deception because he was given command of a nonexistent army. an organization eight or ten divisions, where he was so visible throughout britain in the days leading up so that the germans focused on him, his appearances coincided or so it seemed with the plan landings. >> you didn't watch the ian fleming's three part bio on television, and this is crazy in

many ways. and great james bond novels, he was an extremely effective agent, because of the abilities, he had a plan to actually take a course. i don't think he killed anybody. and dressed in uniform and state information on it about where the landing would be an floated off. >> it was called operation man speed. it isn't in your book. >> leave the germans as to where this is landings, a very wonderful concept. and he was a british sailor. and handcuffed, and the spanish

recover the wreckage and immediately told the germans. >> if you're interested in following this up in fiction, and author named james r. bent has written some wonderful books about a fugitive shirt tail relative of eisenhower, a boston company, to do stuff. he shows up in all these theaters. and he writes about the screwups. he said at one point when he was a training exercise because the stock as of england he would train them there. as he wiped out a bunch of people. was a big screw up. >> operation tiger was a dress

rehearsal for some of the american forces that were going to land in normandy. the germans had a class of torpedo boats, fast boat, we called them fief votes. and i think two of the german torpedo boats penetrated the practice slanting ariane at at night and torpedoed two or three american ships with heavy loss of life, i think about 400 americans were killed and operation tiger became classified until the end of the war ended is interesting to watch the internet revelations because about every 10 to 12 years somebody discovers the cover-up and says look what happened. it has been known since the late 40s. >> the name of the overall thing, there was operation

neptune. was that the naval part? >> correct. the full name of the whole operation was neptune/overlord. you can't have an amphibious operation without a naval aspect and neptune as i explained in the encyclopedia involved, and canada had the third largest navy in world war ii and every individual ships, it was a multinational endeavour. >> you achieve the wonderful balance even though you are clearly an aviation junky but there's a lot i here about the navy and the army and you give great space to the royal air force and the planes that it flew and the royal canadian air force. anyway it is absolutely

fascinating, and -- >> the cover -- al fatah bravo whatever. and the u.s. surgeon. >> the british version. >> and the german version. i thought the choice of names was really fun. sometimes they ever the same miking and king. >> the germans were antoine bruno, caesar, and in fact they even had a word that eludes me over -- >> host: whiskey can go frost trott, three of the code words in the british side of it. there is a lot you can learn from this book that i found complete the fascinating. i marked a couple things. you have all kinds of extra

stuff like d-day movies and the d-day museum and the fact that they didn't destroy the tapestry even though they might well have because it was headquarters and so forth. the other thing i save was your entry on john ford which we already talked about which i love. he was promoted to rear admiral naval reserve, a presidential medal -- i can remember, i was reading the new york times and i have to say this imprint does not make a great bookmark. i have to say the other operation i forgot to mention, operation cobra. >> that was the overall allied plan to break out from the normandy bridge head, and the complex evolution because it required the british and the americans to coordinate not only

the ground forces, but the air power that also was intended to blast a path through the german fortified areas in land from normandy and met with mixed success as i explained in the encyclopedia. well-intentioned heavy bombers did not have a well-defined end point and killed or wounded several hundred americans including lieutenant general nick nehr who was the overall commander of all american ground forces in europe, and was the senior american general killed in world war ii by friendly fire. >> snafu. also discussion about acronyms and snafus certainly applies. the release surprising thing is how we ever actually brought it off considering possibilities for snafus and the brakes that

for and against both sides. it takes a certain amount of luck no matter how great everything else is. >> there's a saying in military circles, i would rather be lucky than good. >> and d-day is a great combination of planning and no matter how great your plans are, you still have to make it up. we learn that here every day. we have to embrace chaos, to do this. anyway, it is a fascinating book. and i wouldn't call it -- surely is the sort of thing you can dip in and out of hand and joy. encyclopedia sounds put off fish but it is not. let's look at because you have done an amazing thing between july of 2013, and july of 2014 you brought out three books especially doing complicated nonfiction, a heroic and crazy.

>> not crazy, probably. i will plead extenuating circumstances because totally beyond my control two publishers involved in these three books happen to bring them out, that is release them on the street between early may and the end of june. back off a few months and you certainly can appreciate this. imagine going cross side, trying to proofread three dollys simultaneously. i don't know how i made it through but fortunately i was able to. >> host: i suspect it was easier. in fiction everything is made up and it would all be different if you were trying to do three books at once that you are working basically on the same fact set in the same universe and have to remember what your focus was. >> which book is it today? >> the u.s. marine corps fighter

squadron of world war ii, this is much more your love of aviation here because you are focused on the flying leathernecks. one thing we learned in the d-day encyclopedia, the reason i started with it is the marines got a huge amount of wary at the battle of bellwoods in world war i and were known as the devil dogs, a term i apply to my puppy. it really created a lot of jealousy and political turmoil with the army. they not too anxious to have the marines involved in the european theater. >> that world war i generation of army officers almost without exception, macarthur being the notable example cordially detested the marine corps and i used to know admiral tom warner retired as chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and he had given

a briefing in the pentagon in early 1944 suggesting that marine fighter-bomber squadrons based on escort carriers in the channel in the north sea with a brand new precision rocket were ideal for destroying german buzz bomb sites in northern france and he barely got started when marshals stood up and said that is the end of this briefing. there will never be as a marine in europe as long as i'm chief of staff and he walked out. that is why john wayne made flying leathernecks about the pacific instead of the atlantic. >> you do underoutline the importance of politics in the encyclopedia. here we are in the pacific theater and your book recognizes 120 marine corps fighting aces. so you explain it. what makes them ace? >> by tradition dating from

world war i, fighter ace or flying ace, snoopy was a flying ace. a combat aviator, usually a fighter pilot who is credited with shooting down at least five anti-aircrafenemy aircraft. one of the reasons were so many of these colorful characters, the main exhibit was jill fosse, who was a long time scottsdale resident. despite all the hype about grade burlington -- >> is that the problem? >> despite all the hype in that direction, joe foss is the top scoring marine corps fighter pilot of all time because all of his victories were scored as a

marine whereas some were claimed with the flying tigers in china and burma. i have to tell a story about joe, wonderfully human being, one of the most gracious, genuine people i ever had the privilege of knowing. and a christian gentleman. he was an evangelist. he would go anywhere to speak about his faith. but beneath that evangelical some, he was also a dedicated, devoted marine corps combat aviator and that meant highly competitive and joe used to joke that he was so competitive he had a hard time letting his grandchildren win at go fish. >> how many of the marine corps aces' lived on, there were some who lived on to fight in corey and there was what, one or more in vietnam. >> there were no marine corps aces in vietnam. the one marine corps ace in the

korean war was a lot chief named jack bullseye. he flew in korea, and these dedicated for years to live for combat, he was selected to fly and exchange tour with the air force near the end of the war and he shot down six communist mig 15 jetfighters so he is only the marine corps's 2 war ace. >> the amphibious assault, we are talking about them flying. headquarters were primarily in conoco and san diego were the flying leathernecks. >> that was before the war. the marine corps aviation structure at that time was 1 east coast, 1 west coast and each of them sent detachments to the virgin islands or other places in the caribbean or out

to hawaii. at the time of pearl harbor i think there were only a dozen marine corps squadrons and as a comparison the appendix in this book lists all 50 marine corps fighter squadrons that served outside the united states during world war ii so there was tremendous expansion. >> what did they find? i wrote it down but brewster buffalo. >> the buffalo was a prewar fighter, a fairly significant in naval aviation history. it went operational in 1939 as navy and marine corps aviation's first monoplane fighter as opposed to the two wing by planes previously. it was a disaster situation at the battle of midway in june of 1942 but fortunately the

follow-on airplane, much more successful, was the grumman wild cat which remained the marine corps's primary fighter well into 1943 and in the overall study i include about the marine corps fighter operations in world war ii the main focus was the guadalcanal campaign which lasted six months in 42, 43, that is where you see the big names starting to emerge. my late friend marion carl, john smith, who were extremely successful with the wildcats even though it was technically inferior to the japanese fight. >> the f 7 tiger cats, they were successful. >> and the corsair which became the iconic marine air plane of world war ii. >> you mention briefly to finish up here pearl harbor there was

no chance for anybody and the marines actually rebuilt the first attempt and then there wasn't enough of them. but midway it that battle was the turning point where the japanese advance was relentless advance was stopped and as you say, guadalcanal was the long flood and we moved on to okinawa and the philippines. based upon this whole book, what is your sentiment of the decision to drop the bomb? did it save lives? >> yes it did. several years ago i was touring the national air and space museum in washington d.c. and the silver hill, md. restoration facility and i became aware there was a group of japanese tourists going through it. one of them was a doctor fluent in english and i got talking to

him about the decision to drop the bomb. he said it was terrible, people died for years thereafter in hiroshima and nagasaki due to radiation poisoning, but the invasion of japan that was planned for november of 1945 would have been horrific end in researching a previous book, whirlwind, a study of all airline air operations in japan, i found interrogation with japanese civil, military and diplomatic officials in the strategic bombing survey. they were almost unanimous in the statement that millions of japanese would have died trying to repulse an invasion. >> not to mention millions of guys. the new york times recently commented on the release of papers on emperor hirohito who

was hidden as a puppet in a lot of analysis, and said that in fact he was more active than is generally thought to be true. and was discovered once because in hiroshima refuse to surrender and could have and led to the bombing at nagasaki. i have been to both places and here's an interesting fact, hiroshima was completely flattened, not only did everybody get radiation poisoning but hiroshima, the whole city, was destroyed. nagasaki is in a kind of a canyon. almost like you were at loss alamosa and that sort of thing so when they dropped the bomb at nagasaki which was an alternate target coming back to the comment about the day that the weather was so bad there was another city that was supposed to be the target and the cloud cover was so terrible they defaulted to nagasaki. when they dropped the bomb the

radiation poisoning kills people but hardly damaged the city at all because the geography and the geometry of nagasaki, first the blast. it didn't wipe out the old historic buildings. you can go visit them. they are still there. unless you go there that is not the sort of thing you know but i found that to be fascinating and having talked to people in bataan they can see the loss of life of japanese -- would have been so much greater but they are gradually realizing a okay, they could have spread the second bombing. >> an excellent opportunity much earlier in early march of 1945 the be 29s from the marriott at highlands levels 1/6 of tokyo overnight and killed 85,000

people. next morning hirohito died in his limousine and towards the city, saw what he saw, smelled what he had to smell and decided we are not going to surrender. imagine if britain or the united states had suffered 85,000 people dead overnight, we have still wanted to continue the war? i am not sure. >> these are questions we can never answer. the at d.j. encyclopedia is published by history and the u.s. marine corps fighter squadrons of world war ii and published by osprey. the final book we are going to do, the forgotten -- "forgotten fifteenth: the daring airmen who crippled hitler's war machine". first, does anyone have any questions they would like to ask? or are you all in a state of complete stunned and amazement. is there anything you would like to ask about anything we have

talked about so far? >> at the start you mentioned do little, you mentioned do little. do little race airplanes before world war ii. how popular was he then? >> he was a rock star in aviation. he won every major aviation race available. the schneider -- for land planes, seat planes, and also made a tremendous contribution to aviation progress in developing instruments that he worked in concert with the gyroscope company and after he left the air corps before world war ii and worked with shell oil he developed high octane gasoline.

>> the deception campaign, and the success of it. >> it was extremely significant. i don't know that it made the difference between winning and losing simply because of the future numerical disparity between allies and germans. when it did, it caused hitler and his general staff, and centrally positioned because they could reinforce a bridge head in normandy, and the allies extra time once the troops were unsure. >> about a thousand. >> talk about naval aviation,

and indeed by plane, went on in the superfighters. and whatever you speak of conventional wisdom of the greatest generations being world war ii definitely the greatest generation for aviators was the world war ii period because they started flying in open cockpit biplanes and trainers doing 80 to 90 knots and those who stayed 20 to 25 year career is finished flying mock 2 jets and that type of progress is not possible anymore. >> my next question, hold off. >> on that note we will change over to the "forgotten fifteenth: the daring airmen who crippled hitler's war machine"

and switch to a different theater. one of these things about this book in this theater of the war that brings to mind old sayings about managers doing logistics'. let's start with the beginning of the book because the book begins with absolutely captivating description, and would you like to describe a little bit? >> i want to set the stage in the prologue, and the bombing mission flown in the mediterranean theater of operations in austria or germany. and bombing access factories and petroleum targets, north of the alps. when you think about it, it is a

rich dilemma and i have always been fascinated with hannibal and his amazing effort to get elements across the alps, in the fourth century bc, and contrast that with the ponderous, tedious task, involving pachyderms of narrow, rocky, craggy mountain trails sometimes breaking trails themselves to fast-forward to the first part of the 20th century, and multi engine bombers five miles high are streaming cottony contrails to the chilly apparatus fear, the contrast appealed to me, all that is what i started the book as i did. >> to ask patton for directions,

and the statement -- another interesting light is shed on the war, the aspect of petroleum as one of the central issues of the conflict, can you explores that in the importance of it? >> the u.s. army air force was established in november of 1943, the allied combined chiefs in london and the u.s. and chief of staff and d.c. in order to defeat germany, it is essential to turn off the oil taps and 1-third of nazi germany's petroleum, and the refineries around 35 miles north of bucharest. if you look at a map of europe and drive a line you see from

london, se, the statute miles, and all of that from german occupied europe, and british based bombers, and consequently the fifteenth air force was established by jimmy doolittle, and job 1, and the list of things to do, and prevent the romanians from continuing to produce not only raw oil and petroleum products but especially refined high octane gasoline. ended four five month campaign, it costs the fifteenth air force 250 airplanes, almost all of the

oil, and the russians invaded and to dover's the area, oil was job 1 and after that was accomplished they could concentrate on other missions such as synthetic refineries throughout southern europe, railroad and other transportation targets. it was the multifaceted strategic air campaign conducted north and south by the eighth air force and the british air force in britain and the fifteenth air force in italy. >> there are so many amazing stories in this book, there is no way we can hope to capture them all, just a few highlights. we didn't catch the mall in the book. let's turn aside, we talked a little bit in the book but general jimmy, i believe you got to know him personally, seems

like an amazing character, us covered the raid to tokyo but he set up the 15th in a two month period, did an amazing job but he would actually fly in combat during the war. >> he began flying combat with his famous carrier launched, 16 army bombers on the tokyo urban area, in april of 1942, not only a medal of honor but a double promotion, for lieutenant colonel to brigadier-general, and i was fortunate getting to know him, tapped by the los angeles chamber of commerce, to write the program for is 80th birth day in 1976, we hit it off and established a friendship, kept in touch, general jimmy's attitude was he is going to

command an air force. and every airplane, and one of his fighter units, and he was caught red handed. and climbing out of the spitfire and brigadier-general star on his shoulder. general doolittle, any second lieutenant's comply a fighter plane or do you want it run by air. the implication being you can do one but not both. and the first bombing mission -- >> a pretty powerful divide at the time between the airman fatality and army mentality and what started as a pretty rocky relationship between doolittle and eisenhower. >> correct. doolittle and eisenhower served

together in north africa where eisenhower has done a three stock in the senior american ground commander in the theater and understand that eisenhower was a west point, class of 1915. not to put too fight at point on it he was a west point slobber. he didn't have the appreciation of a mere reserve officer who did and where the west point ring. it was surprising because eisenhower obviously was intelligent and he was a capable leader and administrator sell it makes you wonder what was it about his professional military education that led him to denigrate to a certain extent reserve officers? but do little as i quote in the book wrote to his wife in late 1943 i guess i finally sold myself to general eisenhower because i'm going to command the

fifteenth air force. eisenhower did not necessarily have a veto on that decision because he was in the process of moving up to england to establish the supreme allied headquarters there but he certainly demonstrated his acceptance of do little two months after the fifteenth air force and requested him to run the eighth air force for the rest of the war. >> let's talk just for a minute about do little's replacement, another interesting guy, especially -- and amazing story. >> from an old american military family. they had an almost unbroken line of service in the u.s. army or navy getting from their revolution.

planning -- named for an uncle who was an admiral. and his brother was the marine corps general so the military was in their dna and there was previous experience commanding this thirteenth air force and he was tapped by general arnold, the chief of the army air forces in washington to transfer from the pacific to italy and take over the fifteenth air force in january of 44. >> he was shot down in the pacific in six days. >> he wasn't shot down, he was on a b-17 bomber of the ran out of fuel and got lost. he survived that ordeal and the emerge stronger than ever. >> one other local nodes. wasn't he on the force that was hunting pancho villa early? >> yes, he was.

in 1916 he was, i think, still a national guardsman. he went to west point thereafter and he was on general pershing's expedition to mexico for a few weeks in 1916. >> let's return to the work again. one of the things that struck me about the book was the steep learning curve and the incredibly stiff resistance in high attrition rates that they experienced especially early but throughout the war, talk of little bit about that. >> are really short course in pre-war army air force doctrine. the tactical school generated plans and doctrines that were disseminated throughout the army in its aviation units and they came up with the concept of the faceoffs depending ballmer, four engine high-altitude bomber with heavy machine gun armament that

was supposed to be able to fend off enemy interceptors without the use of friendly fire escorts. that was an example of the technical tale wedding the doctrine because until well into world war ii we had no long-range escort fighters and that concept of the self defending bomber came up against reality over northern europe with the eighth air force in 1942-43 and the attrition was such that in late 43 it was statistically impossible for a bomber crew to finish at 25 mission to work because the average attrition was 4%. and the eventual arrival in late 43, early 44 of long-range

fighters, and made possible the continued daylight bombing campaign, and flew almost entirely at night. >> they showed amazing experiences. and amazing heroism maybe you could describe a couple of those. >> the best examples undoubtedly at two, 15 there force recipients of the medal of honor. those involved missions to or near plastic in the summer of 1944. obama dear from my home state, oregon, lt. david kingsley tended a badly wounded gunner and had to take off his parachute harness in order to apply for state and that harness disappeared in the confusion and

damage, the airplane was badly shot up. so kingsley made the conscious decision, he had minutes to think about it. he took off his harness, put it on the wounded sergeant, and pushed it out the bomb bay so he could pull the rip cord and david kingsley rode the bomber to his death, knowing what was coming. so if there's a better definition of the above and beyond the call of duty i don't know what it is. the other was that b 24 pie that is airplane was morally damaged and he had about three crew members who were either wounded or unwilling to bailout and he stayed with it trying to make a crash landing and almost got down safely but a wing tips nab on a hill and the airplane cartwheeled and that was donald

pockets who receive the posthumous medal of honor. >> turning to a much lighter note. there are a lot of funny things in the book, and one that i found particularly amusing was went to the got a new bomber, not sure which of the bombers searching for hidden messages, perhaps you describe that. >> we heard a lot about rosie the river, the generic description of female production workers who were not limited to building airplanes, they were building ships, vehicles, everything. after a little while the mechanics who assembled and disassembled new arriving aircraft in a theater of operation, learned that if they looked at a certain panel, behind the instrument panel they could frequently find pencils messages from rosy the river with name kama address, phone number, give me a call, soldier

and if they were especially thorough they listed their call signs. >> many letters though you couldn't confirm was resulted. >> definitely correspondence, whether there were any hookups remains for investigation. >> we are starting to run down on time. i did like to give you a chance to talk about the personalities on the other side of the war. and i explore that side, and talk about in more enduring characters and a few eastern europeans and also the italian sort of style itself. >> a lot of people don't realize it lee was on both sides simultaneously in world war ii

because after miscellany was overthrown in 1943 subsequently he was rescued in a daring commando raid. the northern portion of italy remained in axis hands until the end of the war. but there was a group of italian fighter pilots, one or two squadrons who decided to side with the allies when they flew their fighters into a piece 38 base and climbed out, lined up and reported for duty and they were wearing what the military calls their class a uniforms which is calfs with a little plume, capes and white gloves and how else would a gentleman appear when joining the newly established italian air force? >> two of my favorite characters on the axis side were a. of a colonel who was a superb athlete. he would won the gold medal for

the military pentathlon at the olympics in berlin in 1936. but by the time the fifteenth air force was established he was commanding the air defense sector around the vienna. vienna was the hardest target the fifteenth had. they lost something over 300 airplanes either over vienna or in that area. so he was an extremely capable air commander and a personal connection i have is i used to know his friendly rival, general charles leonard retired as a two star and they began friends in berlin in the 1936 olympics because charlie leonard got the silver medal. afterwards the leonard family

sent food and clothing to germany until they could get back on their feet. and by absolute favorite character in the entire book is a fabulous individual, prince constantine, he was romanian royalty. one of these rare people who xl at everything he did. matinee, movie idol good looks, rock star charisma and there was nothing that interested him that he didn't do extremely well. you, was captain of the romanian hockey team, he was national champion aeronautics stunt pilot, he was a champion motorcycling and automobile racer, and to him, aerial combat was the ultimate start. extremely good at that competition. because he shot down something over 40 soviet and american

aircraft, but once romania capitulated, he realized the american prisoners being held in romania were likely to be liberated by the soviets and he didn't trust the russians to release the americans. as we now know many americans were not released by the soviets. so constantine -- there's an american flag on the fuselages and flew it to the fifteenth air force headquarters and in about two days are arranged a massive airlift to fly bombers up to the bucharest area, load the pows aboard and take them back to freedom in italy. he made the mistake of letting an american fighter pilot fly

his position that and wrapped it in a ball. in order to guide the relief force, he needed an american airplane. the only american airplane available was up pea 51 mustang and the only one of those he had seen were in his gunsight a few weeks before but he was one of these natural born pilots who said show me the taps, in other words how to start the thing. he took off a world class aerobatic demonstrations, landed and said i am ready, let's go. he was a tremendous character and was married four times. one of his wife's divorced him, married a british gentleman named grey, and best known to linda gray to fans of the dallas tv series. i don't know if she ever met her mother's previous -- it is a

remarkable situation. >> i think that is all we have time for. there are so many wonderful and fascinating episodes in the book. do we have time for a few more questions? >> i know you have one. but to be fair is there someone else who would like to ask the question first? okay. back to you then. >> i have a personal question, if you would. you mentioned you had flown over 500 hours of various military aircraft and remodeled some and that kind of thing. did you have a favorite, and if so, why? >> my favorite was the dallas dive bombers that my dad and i and friends and family restored in the early 1970s. we acquired it from portland, ore. which had been using it as

a modified spray plane to control mosquitoes and it got too expensive to operate. we acquired the airplane and at that time it was the only find example of an effort bidi scout bomber by douglas in the world. now i think there are two or three errors the. in the course of researching that airplane i realize almost nothing had been written about it although it was arguably the most important, the most significant american aircraft in the first year of the war after pearl harbor because it got us victories at midway and waddle canal. one of my favorite pictures is that i took from another airplane of my dad flying the airplane. it is a close-up cockpit shot of him. that was dad's favored too and was on the wall over his bed when he died early this year. that became the subject of my

first book and it remains my sentimental favorite. >> in your book you mentioned the lady be good, the dirksen senate office building 4, i remember as a child, a new richard bass hard movie, lone survivor and i remember years later finding out that was a true story. was the dirksen senate office building 4. do you know what happened to that airplane? did they just scrap it? >> was not a fifteenth air force airplane, it was -- went down in the north african desert shortly before the fifteenth was established. navigational error, the crew flew hundreds of miles south from the african coast, ran out of fuel, landed in the desert, it was founded i