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arthur alex kershaw discusses his book avenue of spies. the national world war ii museum hosted this event. it is about an hour. >> i actually am for many reasons. first of all, i would like to really thank without being too selected. i would like to thank jeremy colins and larry, where are you lar larry? is he here? these two gentlemen were my

cocon spc co-con sp co-conspirators. we talked here late at night. i thought to myself would it bae great idea if i can persuade a new yorker to pay me certain amount of money to go back and get drunk at least two or three times every year and it worked. so, i wanted to read you a quick quote, i don't want it to be too much today of the slide show but i was fortunate in finding some remarkable images that was given to me by the last living hero of my book, third jackson, he's 89 years old and you will see images of him later. i want to read you a quick

section. it is a very short section. i hate reading from books because people always fall asleep. this is a really the theme of the book. it is by a very distinguish and extremely brave frenchman. there were many in world war ii. we live in the shadows of soldiers of the night, but you are our lives were not dark. there were arrests and tortures and deaths of so many of our friends and comrades and tragedies awake us, all of us just around the corner. we did not live in or with tragedy. we accelerated by the challenge and the rightness of our cores. it was in many ways of the worst of times and just as many ways

the best of times. and, the best of what we remember today. i think you can say that with the entire narrative of world war ii. the memory serves us in many wonderful way that makes the horror in some ways and as we go on. to the left here -- summer jackson born in may, poor childhood, he left school at 10 years old. he finally ended up working for a doctor's chauffeur. the doctor on the left here encouraged him to go back in college. he became qualified as a doctor at the massachusetts general hospital.

this is him on the left and he's joined as a volunteer at a medical unit and that's taken in 1917 on his way to france to serve as a combat surgeon. this is another picture of s sumner jackson of 1917. if you look at the guy ahead of the table that's operating. that's jackson. the woman right besides him to his right is his future wife. this was taken in 1917 in a hospital in a room in paris where the sumner jackson actually met his future wife. phillip jackson, their son told

me they fell in love while jackson operated in the surgery. their first very long kiss was off the picture. he told me it was a very long kiss indeed. >> it is france after all. >> here is toquette and sumner, she was a remarkable woman, she was a fantastic tennis player and boasted throughout her life that she beaten france's number one tennis player of all time. she won 31 championships. toquette was a very good tennis player, she loved to play tennis with sumner. and for ten years she tried to

get pregnant and it did not work out. in 1929, third jackson, their only son was born at the american hospital in paris. she was in her mid-30s and given up hope at having a child. here is phillip and sumner. it is an absolutely beautiful autograph. phillip is still alive. to most of us of this photograph is the railing that you see the effect of railings behind them. very privilege of bringing and living on the exclusive streets

of paris. he ended up treating hemingway and fitzgerald and many of th them -- that's taken on juniper beach. one of the beaches for d-day the family here, 1930s. his father. the gentleman to the left -- he plays the grand role as we discovered later in saving phillip's life, he taught fi phillip to swim.

he also learned how to swim in the great difficult water of the english channel. >> i pointed out here if you can see this and this is the -- i think you can see berlin, that's where they lived. there were two entrances, there you go. thank you, gentleman. it is perfect. this is the address today. what's in red shows the ground floor of -- that's where doctor jackson had his private medical office. he made a lot of money. a lot of very rich american businessmen that came to paris

had a good time. they have his telephone number in their pocket box just in case. importantly there was an exit to the left here than the front entrance of the ground floor apartments where people came and went all the time to see doctor jackson. june of 1940 sumner, the newscanazis arrived. he did not leave paris. he fled paris. on the 10th of may 1914, i will be in paris with my artist in

six weeks. he was. amazing amazingly in paris six weeks in june of 1940. this gentleman here is one of america's first spies. before the second world war, there was no foreign intelligence service, you guys did not have a foreign intelligence service, that was the job of the people working for the state department, donald costar was a prince graduate. he witnessed a huge terrifyi terrifying -- this ambient, he

was working for the americans of the -- he found his way to paris of early 1940s and dropped off of the hotel by none other of george kennedy. and then found his way to the american hospital of paris where he went to doctor sumner jackson. he said he needs to hide for a while, he was being hunted. they knew he was a spy. so jackson thought coster, he said only one person in his basement doctor sumner jackson.

he was one of several agents that was sentenced to north africa in 1942 before operation torch and had a long and distinguish career oss, it is like the cia. allowing coster to hide in the basement of jackson's. jackson took his first great risk of all. >> avenue boche in the fall of 1940 of the most cultured and most bevolant. when they came to avenue boche, named after their great french general, they literally chose the nicest.

they all lived at avenue boche. it was so many finest houses of paris. here you see the arrow is pointing to 72. helmet knochen. he's 37 years old here, he had a phd. he speaks four languages, a distinguish and brilliant gentleman. he arrivedd in the 1940s in

disguise. germans do not want these black bastards anywhere in their power. they wanted to have a very nice war thank you very much, occupies with the most beautiful city in europe. they did not want men like this terrorizing them and among their influence. i found him to be incredibly interesting. he was a extremely able intelligent agent. he was involved inside one of the the great cues of the early day. extremely cultured and sophisticated and really, really highly functioning operator.

winter of 1940s, the jacksons lived wealthy. they had a country home in enghein which is 20 miles north of paris. they're cutting woods in the backyard. i thought she went to the backyard about a year ago and they're cutting the woods because it was the coldest winter on record over 100 days when the temperatures went freebelow freezing at night. he loved this photograph because it was one of the few occasions where he got to spend time with his dad, the hero worship. his father was very busy at the american hospital. doing things like this bonded them.

1942, if you go on youtube, you can find the original newsreel for this i am packamage. it is a truly horrifying image. when you look up here of the museum, when you think of what this museum means, it means defeat of these black bastards. if the center obviously, those who recognize brian heydrich. at least 15 to 20 million people died because of his plans. to the right we have knochen,

king of paris on the eighth of may 1942, just outside of paris of all the adults and on the left we have general carl oberg, who arrived with heydrich to take control over the ss in france. they got a beautiful mercedes. together they planned the murder of 80,000 french jews. that was the head quarters of danica. he worked closely that week to deport and killed over 80,000

men. and heydrich, that's one of the last photographs taken from him, he's 38 years old. what struck me is they're so young. i am 49 and they have a future of the entire population in their hands at that time. heydrich three weeks after this photograph is taken, as senasa 5 assassinated in prague. heydrich is his protector and mentor. that was a nasty incident in

1971 it was discovered by the commander of paris and they headed back to berlin. so during the week that heydrich spending in paris whining and dining and meeting a lot of ma'am dams madam madames, they talked about what they would do. heydrich was killed because of the shuffling that went on in evolving doors of the ss. and knochen here became ahead, the most powerful men, the

german's secret police in the wholly france under the control of fs general carl oberg. meanwhile the hospital, sumner jackson waiting for his own war against the nazi. this is a document and i know it looks boring. it is quite interesting. it is the invasion from a 19 years old joe manos. he flew one of those up there. he shut down on the 14th of

july, 1943. his father sold his huge air battle above paris. americans bombed paris on bastille day on 1943 which managed to shut down. he made it back to england about four months later completing of what's called a home ru run -- absolutely amazing achievement. he was interrogated for about a week by british intelligence. here, you will see here that he reports having kept the three days and 11 avenue of doctor sumner jackson. the penalty for aiding evan by this search of war of 1943 was instant death. he was shot ton the spot. this is one document example of

one the ones that jackson helped. jackson took him back to his home on avenue foch. 1943 the french resistance is becoming much more active. many communists and other in fran stop to join the resistance and instances of bombings and assassinatio assassinations. more than ever by 1943, more have moved to head quarters on the avenue foch waiting for an unrestricted war against the resistance. >> mission was to destroy all

operations and assassinations and killings and gangs working for them. all desi here you have number 84. and the blood hound good at tracking down british agents. she was tortured at number 84. several members of the soe actually most of our british agents were captured. that's why you ended up at number 84 on the fifth floor where they had torture chambers. you will notice that here on avenue foch here.

in august 1943, this gentleman is still alive, he's 94. you see the track here, he's a neighbor of jackson's. he grew up next to jackson. in 1943, he walked out of his front door and took a step to the left and walked o ut of the foyer and knocked on the door of jackson. he stood in the living room and said i belong to the resistance network. can we use your home as a drop box for the intelligence as a meeting place in paris. it is a perfect place, it is a doctor's office and people come and go, it is too ethics and essential. he told me in paris years ago when he asked duqette if he

could use the house, she did not hesitate for a second. several high profile agents deposited information at gestapo office. it became an important part - part -- toquette was the main in s instigator. this is a beautiful shot. i wish i can make it bigger. i should not be using this. it is a photograph taken from the stairwell at avenue foch. he was left in a hurry.

you can -- in fact, fourth id veterans of utah in the streets of deliberated. by the 1994, jackson had been deported to france. they were exposed and betrayed and just two weeks before d-day may of 1994. the rest taken to fuji, south of

paris. south of france, toqutte taken to paris and she was deported literally a week before the american and the french arrived. she can hear the sound of american arteillery as she wait to be deported. this is a picture of ravensbruk. it is unknown of thousands of women and many of them are the bravest, very, very special people at the political prisoners. people opposed of all over.

women were sent to ravensbruck. toquette and many others who were imprisoned with her. somehow she managed to survive tp winter the winter of 1944 and 1945. these women here shown wearing uniform. it is quite unusual. most of the women in here group were forced to construct an airfie airfield wearing summer dresses. many of them died from hype t m hyperthermia and disease. she had a couple of weeks to

live. this is toquette at 59 years old. look at her face. from her cheeks to her breasts of thousands of scars for life which she had for the rest of her life. 59 years old, this is a picture taken as she comes off a boat on the 29th of april 1945. she was rescued by the red cross. she had 200 other women were taken in white buses and escorted and this is a shot of her taken where she's coming off a boat looking into the camera.

phill phillip, this was taken in place of prison ship summer of 1945 set out to the gulf of 9,000 concentrated camps survivors. phillip was aboard on the filbeck where 2,500 people stuck in a boat. commissions were horrendous and hundreds of people died. in three days boarding this prison ship. on the fourth of may 1945, the ref under water sank, and two

other boats killing almost 9,000 people. it is the greatest maritime disaster of world war ii. from his ship, nearly 250 people survived. he told me when he was in the wo hole of the ship, he climbed up the metal ladder and he wanted fresh air and he was gagging, an old german guard took pity of him. he stood at the deck and saw the typho typhoon. it is a beautiful plane coming towards him and he saw a rocket fired. he was a brilliant mathematician, he game an engineer and he thought to himself of the ankle of the rocket is slightly to the left it is not going to hit me. he watched the rocket coming down and sure enough hit the other people.

he saw three more rockets come and they hit the ship. he managed to jump off the boat. he spent maybe up to five minutes as the ship sank looking for his father trying to find sumner. he was in the hole, he did not left. phillip jumped in the boat and had a mile to swim to shore. he will tell you today that the best thing that ever happened to him was when his father taught him to swim in the english channel. he knew how to swim out of water. he was picked up by a german craft, they thought hef was a german sailor. they realized he was an inmate and they allowed him to stay on

the boat. ss actually -- they kill as many of these people as they could. i should add and this is what is disturbing of world war ii still today that germany civilians went out on the beaches in quebech took here guns and weapons and also kill these survivors. the rage is so intense towards the end of the war. this is phillip, he was lying up against the wall and in filbeck. 20 survivors and the ss mountain 22 machine gun and he tells stories as they are mounted

machines. that's how phillip jackson survived. he was taken by the british army and actually became a translator for summer of 1945 in the city. he was involved with the american incentive interrogating germans because he could speak german very well. his mother toquette survived in paris, saying where are you? come home to paris, i want to be with you. she lost the love of her life, she had a son, she wanted him to return. >> phillip told me that he did not want to go back. going back would be to confront the lost of his father. eventually, he went back. phillip -- you cannot be hardly

decorated because of the suffering. you might not made a difference in battle but the prison war camp allows him to qualify. this is in hamburg in 1946, phillip is in the right and he looks remarkably like his father. he's a splitting image of his father. his testify here for the ss of nine men, he pointed to each one of them and faced them in the court, number one, number two and number three and five and six and number eight and nine, a every guy he named was hung.

absolutely. these guys were not hung. knochen on the right here, 1954 on the right oberg. knochen ran the gestapo in france. he was directly responsible for the deport of the jacksons and other people. he was found guilty of war crimes by the french. we had british had sentenced him to death beforehand for the murder of sas troops in august of 1944. he was directly responsible. and this is their first day of their trial in paris. for crimes against humanity. both were sentenced to die. both were released ten years later because of the cold war politics. we commuted sadly, i believe, we commuted a lot of the sentences

for convicted ss war criminals because we wanted to keep the germans happy. they were our bullwort against soviet and russia. it was the cold war. these guys, we treated them with kid gloves. knochen went back -- he was actually finally pardoned in 1968 by a general, of all people. he went back to germany and worked in insurance and died a wealthy man in 2003. and he said that the greatest regret of his life was that he had been involved in the holocaust. but he didn't know what was going to happen to the people who were deported to the east. he had no knowledge of auschwitz. he knew nothing about that. but he was very sorry that he was involved with the people that sent them somewhere else. very skilled, fabbial to the very end, and carl oberg here,

also lived to see retirement in prosperous west jugermany. that's phillip, taken 2014. you can see the blurred image behind him. that's where phillip lives today, surrounded by other highly decorated veterans of not just the second world war but alsoi also any highly decorated french veteran gets to live there, which is where i interviewed him several times. that's the dome, and under that dome is napoleon's tomb. he today lives a tone's throw from napoleon's tomb. and at the risk of making you wince, this is me and phillip, and there are some people in the

audience -- this is phillip's favorite restaurant. there is some people in the audience who got quite timsy in that restaurant with me relatively recently. can you put your hands up, please? see over here. it's a restaurant called pasco. i expect to eat for free now. and this is his favorite restaurant. i was very fortunate to spend a lot of time with phillip, he was 89 and extremely proud. extremely proud of his french heritage and his american heritage. extremely proud that he's the son of a guy from maine that risked it all and gave his life for the allied cause in world war ii, in a war that we don't know enough about. a private war. a disturbing war. a war in which the knock on the front door could mean your death at any moment. thank you so much for being a wonderful, wonderful audience.

[ applause ] >> if there are questions, please raise your hand and i'll come to you with the microphone. starting here with the lady on the left. >> how did toget get in touch with phillip. there were no cell phones. >> it's a great question. phillip's daughter lorraine who lives in boston, i became good friends with her. she was kind of my liaison. she gave me a treasure-trove of letters and there's really beautiful but heartbreaking letters written to phillip, and phillip to his friends in paris. phillip, in the may of 1945, thought his mother and father had been killed. he didn't know that tocethad

survived ravensbruck. he said i'm all alone. my parents died in the camp. he didn't find out until june of 1945 from a letter that his mother was alive. and he wrote to her immediately in paris. so yeah, there's a really beautiful letter from her to some of his relatives in maine that she writes to them about jack, who was always jack to her. telling the family in maine what her husband was, who he was, really. a really beautiful letter. it's heartbreaking. >> the two germans, oberg and knochen, why didn't like israel hunt them down to, you know,

were they not that important or were they not known? >> i think if i was french and jewish or french and patriotic, they would be top of my list. that's a good question. i don't know why they weren't hunted down. i certainly know that both of them were very, very aware that they were marked men. they were very afraid to be tried in france. when they were brought to france, they knew things were going to be very, very serious. a good question. you would have to ask the same of the entire german nuclear physicists program. you know, what happened to them? they put the man on the moon, basically. there were political considerations, but the cold war had begun in 1945. we shook hands and danced to the banjo with the russians in april of 1945. but that was the end of our so-called relationship.

and so the cold war was really hotting up by 1946-1947. and we needed a bold war against communism in europe. west germany, we had to maintain that at all costs. because of that, west germany, guess what? you don't have a europe anymore. we did what we had to do to keep the germans happy, doesn't matter who they were. that included going easy on some of their senior ss officials. i think it's unforgivable, but i'm not a politician in the state department in 1947 trying to get the germans to allow us to put bases all over their country, you know. >> to your left again, alex. >> a comment and a question. we here in the colonies pronounce the name of the famous university in maine bowden.

>> you say bowden, yeah? >> bowden. a question, you have a very interesting group of books you have written over time. how do you select the subjects that you're going to write on? what do you have in mind for your next book? >> um, that's a very good question. it's getting really hard now, sadly, tragically, which is why the museum's mission is so important, because we can no longer rely on meeting people that were in world war ii. it's getting harder to find people. because i'm very much about forming a relationship and the human side of the war. not just interested in strategy and tactics. i'm very interested in the human experience. so you know, the book yz have done have really been based on interviews with people. so this one i was very lucky because i had phillip. he's really my main source in the book. so it's getting difficult. i am -- i did meet a gentleman about three weeks ago, actually

amazing guy called john kapsaros, and in the second world war, he was a race gunner up there. he's 93 years old and he's a president of the u.s. escape and evasion society. not many members because there were not many members who qualified in world war ii. these are guys who made what was called a home run. so he got shot down above berlin or brussels, making a home run meant that you were ferried by the french resistance down an escape line, like joe, i mentioned earlier, and then you climbed over the peer these, went to spain and got back to engla england. in kapsaros' case, he made it back to the base where he had taken off four months before. i'm fascinated by the story. you can have a fugitive, the

gestapo were chasing these guys all the time. and right now, there are maybe 50 people he didn't know had risked their lives to help him get back home. and there's a beauty in that. there were not 50-year-old, you know, french guys with potbellies. the beautiful thing is they were usually young women. the guys in france who were being deported to work or were in the army, there were not many men around in rural france, so you have these 19, 20-year-old americans who are trusting these women with their lives. sometimes once or twice a day. they're getting off a train, walking to the end of the platform, and there's an 18-year-old girl there, and she nods and they follow. so i'm fascinated by this. and his plane, there were two guys who made home runs, which is really astonishing. so that interests me because

he's alive and a wonderful, wonderful guy. caught twice by the gestapo and escaped twice. you know, across the peyranees with a pair of shoes that were one size too small and a summer suit in march, at 9,000 feet, with blizzards. so i'm kind of interested in that, you know. anyway. yes, sers. >> to you right. >> thank you. do you happen to know why the jackson family was deported as opposed to executed? >> very good question. i think there was maybe an element of politics involved, which is that they were -- jackson was an important american citizen. he was well known. by that stage of the war, may of 1944, some people -- well, not some, but quite a few ss officer were smart. they knew the war was going to not end up well for them. so killing people indirectly

responsible for executing the jagsons might have been difficult to explain later. but it was a general policy, the gestapo and ss would deport political prisoners and send them into night and fog. they were to disappear into the concentration camp system. and phillip told me that it wouldn't have been profitable, wouldn't have been -- wouldn't have maximized his human utility to be shot by the ss. they would have rather worked him to death. because they got free labor. so this is the mindset of knochen and his kind. you don't -- there's two people. you make them work and then you shoot them. phillip's father was in ravensbru ravensbruck. a beautiful british agent, a superstar if you're british.

a 24-year-old superagent and there's a great movie. anyway. she was in ravensbruck, and she was deported from paris in august 1944, and right towards the end of the war was taken out with three other british agents and shot in the back of the head. the ss sent people, deported them, but right at the end, they realized in the spring of 1945, they realized they really did need to get rid of these people because if they testified in a war crimes trial, they would point the finger like phillip did, so they killed them. many of the bravest british agents were killed right at the end of the war. literally days from the end of the war because the ss didn't want them to point the finger. but yeah, great question. >> to your far right. >> i'm interested in knowing how

many other americans did he enable to escape. and also, is this going to be a movie? >> i would love it to be a movie. because i'm really tired of writing these books, you know. i want to -- it doesn't have to be a big caribbean island. just a beach and a shack would be fine. i'm not going to read around book ever. what was the better part of the question? how many -- i don't know. only one that i could nail, i could actually find documentary proof for was john manoff, who was interviewed, still alive. listed in sacramento, california, and a combination of his wife and joe, i managed to ask him enough questions to realize -- i asked him actually five times, did you stay in

foch, and he was a bit confused. he did stay at 11 avenue foch. for me, the great challenge of this book, one that i didn't really succeed in overcoming, and that's not false modesty, was nothing was written down. you did not write anything down if you were in resistance. that was the rule number one. you never wrote a name down, never talked to anybody about anybody else. everybody's name was a code name. you didn't, you know, the jacksons were ridiculously vulnerable because they stayed in the same place, and they were known as the jacksons. other people in the resistant made sure they had code names and they moved constantly. jackson never wrote anything down. very, very smart guy. so we do know that he helped them, we know that manoff was taken by people within that line

to the american hospital. sat in his office and saw jackson written on the wall, and that he described the jacksons to me as an undercover cuckal. they were underground. and he told me when i interviewed him, joe told me he wouldn't be alive without him helping him. he didn't think he was going to live. and to this day, he's extremely grateful that the jacksons risked their lives to hide him in their own home in the most dangerous part of paris, the most lethal street you could find yourself in in occupied europe. i think there were probably several, at least several. but joe is the only one i could actually document and interview. >> we have time for a few more questions. and we'll get some over here. >> what happened to phillip? did he have a family of his own? >> he did.

he has two daughters. i met both of them. one, barbara, lives in paris. i went to lunch with her at pasco. phillip paid. i'm glad because the wine was quite nice. and then lorraine, his youngest, oldest daughter, lives in -- just outside boston, and she came to the states in her late 20s. she's also mystified by the american heritage she had. and came over in her late 20s and decided to stay. i think she's been here over 20 years now. she's got two sons. they're all very proud of their grandfather. and she's become -- she told me that she felt there was something in her that was uz american. that she wanted to come and live here. it's kind of nice because he's got two daughters. one locally in paris, he sees a lot, and then lorraine.

and in fact, lorraine was able to take the book to phillip about two weeks ago, and i couldn't find it, but i have a nice cheesy photograph of phillip with my book. so yeah, and phillip enjoyed what was called the 30 glorious years of post-war boom in france. and he joined an engineering firm. without his father's death, they had to leave 11 avenue foch, couldn't afford to live there, and they moved to the country home. his mother died in 1968 at the american hospital of paris. and phillip, he worked for an engineering company. at 18, he joined as a draftsman at the engineering company and worked his way all the way up to being the vice president. and has had a very, very, as he told me, a very, very lucky

life. he survived a concentration camp. he survived the sinking of a prison ship. he survived skin cancer in the last ten years. survived falling on his head from 20 feet up when he fell off a ladder. and he's just very, very grateful to still be alive. i have one, one nice little story i just remembered. you remember the gentleman called pinwale. see if i can flip back through. and find him. there you go. this guy is actually an amazing guy. highly decorated member of the french resistance. recruited toquette with jackson's neighbor all through his childhood. after the war, he never went back to the house besides where

his parents still lived. he never went back and saw toquette. he saw her that one time only when he walked into her front room and said will you join the resistance? what he was doing was saying, will you put everything on the line. not just your life, not just your husband' life, but your 12-year-old son's life. he told me she didn't hesitate for a second. he felt enormous guilt. he found out almost within an hour of the arrest of the jacksons they had been arrested and felt terrible, terrible guilt because he felt responsible. it had been his idea to go and ask them. so i interviewed him two years ago, and in the conversation, i said, you know that phillip jackson is still alive? he was -- really? i said, you don't know that phillip jackson -- i realized he didn't want to have any connection to the jackson family because he felt such tremendous guilt. he told me he felt tremendous

guilt. he said, i couldn't go and face toquette after the war. i sent my father instead to go and tell her how sorry i was. and toquette said you don't have to feel sorry because all of us were able to hold our heads high. we joined the resistance. we're very proud of that. anyway, a couple weeks after i saw him, he went to see phillip for the first time. i don't know what they -- i don't know what they talked about, but i'm sure it was -- it was quite profound. and he said i'm really sorry that your parents went through what they did and you went through what you did and sorry your father died. it was my fault. and phillip said, of course it wasn't your fault. it wasn't your fault. don't feel bad about it. as an addendum to this gentleman, he is the last living survivor of the french mountaineering party that climbed k-2 in 1950.

highest mountain ever climbed in 1950 was k-2 by the french, and half of them almost died of frost bite. he's the last surviving member of the first team to climb the highest mountain in the world, first at that time. at which was 1953. he didn't get to the top. he was halfway up the mountain, i think. but he's a legend in france. if you're an alpinist in france, this guy belongs to that team that conquered actually the most dangerous mountain in the world. i think 1 in 3 people who get to the top don't get to the bottom of k-2. he's an incredible guy. i loved him. he was a really amazing, amazing -- i mean, look at him. lifelong diplomat. and took an awful lot of risks. so and you can see the little -- can you see the little red mark on his jacket right here?

it's so subtle and so french. but it means so much to them. >> one last question here in the middle, alex. >> where did you acquire the pictures of them when they were small, of the jackson family, the children? >> oh, they were from phillip. phillip. i went with a very good friend of mine who took this picture. a guy called john, who has done work with me on most of my books. and phillip pulled out all his albums and we photographed them very carefully. because he wouldn't -- he wouldn't for obvious reasons let me take the photograph. >> it's amazing they survived. >> yeah, it's a treasure-trove. i was very, very fortunate that he allowed me to use so much of what he gave me. well, thank you for being such a fantastic audience. thank you. [ applause ]

>> in a few minutes, we'll take you live to the white house for a medal of honor ceremony. president obama will be awarding the medal to retired colonel charles kettles for his heroic acts during the vietnam war. live coverage starting in just a couple minutes live here on c-span3. while we wait for the start of the ceremony, here's a segment from today's "washington journal." actually, we're going to take you live to the white house for the medal of honor ceremony. it's just getting under way.