Karl Friedrich “Charley” Koenig

Yesterday we lost our beloved 96-year-old Africa Corps veteran Karl Friedrich “Charley” König, who was so instrumental in helping us forge our core mission: to promote understanding between former enemies, peace, and healing. He showed us the path through his reconciliation and epic friendship with the Sherwood Rangers Tank Regiment, against whom he had fought in the desert in 1943.
Charley was full of life until the end, a wild spirit with a sense of gentle fun. He was unfailingly kind, generous, adventurous, smart, funny, and the best company on a road trip you could ever have. He slept anywhere, including on benches; ate anything, including crocodile and rattlesnake; made friends wherever he went; was up for any dare; cracked jokes even in the worst of times; danced to Glen Miller’s In the Mood as well as hip hop.
We could always count on him, no matter how hard or how far the road, how rocky the terrain.
We have lost a loyal and true friend. He was one of the best among us, a warrior who never backed down, yet the owner of a compassionate and forgiving heart. Carrying on the work without him will be magnitudes more difficult, almost unimaginable.
I am inconsolable.
Heather

 

 

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Graham and Charley Update – June 2018

Thanks to so many of our generous donors, we were able to bring Charley and Graham back together in England at the end of May at both Cannock Chase German Military Cemetery and Armougeddon Tank Museum in Leicestershire, England. Although Graham did not feel well enough to accompany us on our further travels to Normandy, Charley and I were warmly welcomed attended the Sherwood Ranger’s Tank Regiment’s ceremonies at Gold Beach on June 6, and the Bayeux Museum de la Bataille de Normandie on June 7. Unfortunately, no other WWII veterans were in attendance.

Please stay tuned for the mini-documentary, which we’ll start putting together soon.

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Live Tomorrow March 17, 2018

Our crowdfunding campaign for Graham and Charley goes live tomorrow, don’t miss getting the following perks:

  • autographed photo postcards,
  • tank books autographed by the authors,
  • tank museum tours in the US and the UK,
  • tank driving opportunities in the US and the UK,
  • a chance at more personalized opportunities to meet the veterans, once you donate at the $50 level.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/former-enemies-best-friends-friendship-peace/coming_soon

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Separating the Truth from Fiction

We’ve had some emails and calls recently, wondering what we’re working on and what our vision is, and I’m happy to oblige with an update.

Our goal has always been to record the combat and human stories of World War II participants in the US and around the world, so they wouldn’t die with them, and to write them as books, develop them into multi-media projects, and engage young people by using them in high school and college curriculum.

That’s why our interviews are often not just 15 or 20 minutes long, or even 60 minutes long. Some are as short as 90 minutes.  More are in-depth, and can consist of 20-30 hours of footage or more, conducted over days, months, and sometimes years. The conversations often become intensely personal, and so can be the photos, journals, letters, documentation, and first-hand accounts we scan in.

Trust is part and parcel of our work. We have developed a reputation for being scrupulously honest. Our intent has always been to record the truth and present it fairly, without bias. Without this foundation, we could never have gained access to the inner thoughts and lives of these veterans.

The goal has never been to post in their entirety these raw videos, photos, journals or first-hand accounts on our website, although as we process them, some of the documents and video clips will pop up over time.

Trust is one of the most important reasons we’re discriminating with our posts. We are the custodians of the personal details these videos and documents often contain, and have promised to handle them sensitively and correctly.

Another is that once transcribed (a very time-consuming process in and of itself for hundreds of hours of footage), oral histories must be verified and bolstered with archival data. Memory changes over time, and exaggeration is an all-too-human failing. Even worse, we’ve discovered to our dismay that a surprising number of veterans have told us flat-out whopper fibs. Only diving deep into archival records has separated the truth from fiction.

And we refuse to publish fiction. It may be entertaining, but it does irreparable harm to those who really are honest, and whose experiences are genuinely deserving of our respect.

After months of transcribing, researching at the archives, and pouring through documents, we have had to reject four of the first five stories we wanted to publish, because archival records have proven them untrue. One is wending its way through the design process in pre-publication, and we are moving on to others.

Good, thorough research and writing is never lightning fast. It takes both time and money – in the gathering of information, the processing of it, and then in the telling of the story.

There are no shortcuts to quality and truth.

We could use your help. If you would like to assist us by donating your time or supporting us with the funds we need to continue our work, please donate here or email us at info (at) ww2historyproject.org.

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Trip to Nuremberg cancelled

Some of you have been wondering what has been happening with our project to bring Dr. Edgar Klugman back to Nuremberg to meet his childhood friend Hansi.  Unfortunately, Ed’s health will no longer allow an overseas trip.  GoFundMe donors have been refunded their money in full.  We appreciate your support, and hope that Ed and Hans will be able to use technology to deepen their friendship from afar.

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Thanks for your support!

Support us when you shop on Black Friday and Cyber Monday: please use smile.amazon.com/ch/46-1282276 and Amazon donates to World War II History Project.

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Interview with an Author: Jay Stout

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Jay Stout is a former Marine fighter pilot and the author of 11 books, many on World War II. He is new book is entitled Vanished Hero: The Life, War and Mysterious Disappearance of America’s WWII Strafing King.  You can learn more about Jay at his website or buy the book on Amazon.

 

 

Heather:              You’ve had a very interesting military career. Can you tell me a little bit more about it?

Jay:                        Sure. I was a Marine for 20 years from 1981 to 2001. Like any Marine, I loved it. I miss being a Marine every single day. I also was a fighter pilot during that period. I flew F-4s and F/A-18s, to include combat missions, during the first Gulf War in 1991 in the F/A-18 Hornet. My career was aviation-oriented. Just like I miss being a Marine, I miss being a fighter pilot every single day. It was a great life. As much as I’ve done since then, I still look at that as the most rewarding part of my adult life.

Heather:              How do you transition out of being a fighter pilot on an F/A-18 Hornet?

Jay:                        Sometimes, not very well. I get bored easily. You look for other outlets either through work or through hobbies. I’ve taken up golf. Obviously, I’ve done a lot of writing which consumes a lot of time, and I spend time with my family. You find things to do. I think everybody, no matter what their career is, when they switch careers, has the same issues and challenges in finding other ways to get themselves engaged.

Heather:              Let’s talk a little bit about one of your interests: writing books. You’ve written about events during a lot of different wars. What is it about World War II that seems to interest you more than other time frames?

Jay:                        It’s hard to say. For some reason, I have a visceral attraction to that time period. I was one of those kids who never wanted to be anything else other than a fighter pilot. I grew up reading a lot of stories from World War II. After retirement, I had a decent amount of writing talent, plus the background of being a fighter pilot myself, plus a knowledge of World War II. It seemed just natural for me to continue to write about those things that either hadn’t been written about, or perhaps could have been written about a little bit differently, and from the perspective of somebody who’s actually done some combat flying himself.

Heather:              What perspective do you think that gives you when you go to write some of these stories?

Jay:                        Just the feel. Not only the physical feel of being in the cockpit but the emotional part as well. When somebody is shooting at you, it’s actually quite terrifying. Anybody who says that it’s otherwise, at least in the beginning, has either got something wrong with him or he’s lying. I know what it’s like to pull a lot of Gs, that is to make a very hard turn, and I know what it’s like with snot coming out of your nose into your oxygen mask, and for your helmet to come over the top of your head to where you can’t see anymore, and what it feels like to actually start to lose consciousness. I know what it’s like when you release bombs off of one wing and it tips up a little bit in response. Just those little nuanced things that a writer or historian who hasn’t lived that life isn’t going to be familiar with, isn’t even going to think to write about. I think that’s what I bring to the table that so many non-military writers just can’t because they’ve never lived that life.

Heather:              You’ve picked two groups to write entire books about; the 352nd Fighter Group and the 303rd Bomb Group. What is it about those two groups, and what was it about a bomber group that attracted you to the stories?

Jay:                        The 352nd Fighter Group was in that sweet spot of fighter groups where it had been in service for a great period of the war.. It did very well, but it hadn’t been written about to the extent that some of the other fighter groups had been written about. It had a lot of great personalities in it. Perhaps, at least as important, was that Robert “Punchy” Powell was a big advocate of the group. He had flown P-47s and P-51s with the group and was very successful.

After the war, he helped form an association and collected and archived a huge amount of material about the group for about 30 years. Not only official documents but stories from the men who had served. All that material he made available to me. That was just a really rich resource. He was a great guy. The group was a great performing group. I really enjoyed writing the book.

As far as the bomb group, it always seemed to me that the bomber guys were the bravest guys. Because, whereas a fighter pilot can turn and dive away or refuse combat, the bomber guys had to fly through the flak. They had to endure the fighter attacks. They had to fly close formation and make their ways to the target regardless of what they were feeling or what they felt that particular day. That took a tremendous amount of bravery. It was a bravery that makes a person climb out of bed and climb into that airplane and fly missions day after day after day knowing that it’s not necessarily their skill that’s going to ensure that they survive even though skill is important. A huge amount of their survival was dependent on luck. That wasn’t necessarily the case with the fighter pilot.

Most World War II fighter pilots will agree with me, they’ll say, “The bomber guys were the bravest and the toughest.” Much the same thing, the 303rd Bomb Group Hell’s Angels saw action through most of the war. They were one of the early bomb groups. They weren’t as famous as some of the other bomb groups although they had some tremendous accomplishments. Again, they had a real strong bomb group association, a real strong archivist, a lot of material for me to work with and they shared readily.

Heather:              Now you’ve got a new book. What’s the name of that book, and what’s it about?

Jay:                        This book is called, “Vanished Hero: The Life War, and Mysterious Disappearance of America’s World War II Strafing King.” It’s a book about Elwyn G. Righetti. He was a fighter pilot during the war. He actually earned his wings before America entered the war and was immediately made a flight instructor. It was part of the effort that turned the United States Army Air Forces from about 25,000 men to 2.5 million men.  He was promoted very quickly and was a lieutenant colonel by the time he was 27.  He was given more and more important postings within the training command. The whole time, he wanted to go to combat. Because he was so good at his training job, he was kept there in the training command.

Finally, towards the end of the war in the fall of 1944, he was sent to England and joined the 55th Fighter Group which was flying P-51 Mustangs, and quickly established himself as a very aggressive, talented fighter pilot. He became an aerial ace, and earned 7.5 aerial victories during the time of the war when a lot of fighter pilots never even saw a German aircraft airborne.  He was aggressive in terms of finding things to shoot up on the ground, lots of locomotives, anything valuable to the Germans, almost to the point of recklessness. In that short period he became a squadron commander and then the group commander, and became the leading ground strafing ace. He destroyed 27 aircraft on the crowd.

He was shot down on the group’s second-to-last mission in April of 1945 and crash landed. He had been shooting up an enemy airfield. He called out over the radio, “I’m fine. I think I may have broken my nose but otherwise, I’m okay. Let the family know I’m okay. I’ll see you in a couple weeks when this is all over,” and was never heard from again. The supposition is that he was probably captured and lynched by German civilians. No trace of him has ever been found. There’s never been anyone who has come forward to offer any evidence of what happened to him. It’s a really interesting story.

Heather:              How did you get involved with the story?

Jay:                        I was approached by a researcher who was collecting material on the Righetti story. He was diagnosed with cancer. Based on what he had read, he believed I was the best choice to write a book about Righetti. He was really hopeful that I would take the project on. I agreed to do so. He sent me cartons of material. Sadly, he passed away before I finished the manuscript.

At first, I felt compelled to write the story. But as I got more and more into the story, I found that it was one of the most interesting books I’ve done as well as one of the most difficult books I’ve ever done.

Heather:              What was so difficult?

Jay:                        Much of the book revolves around the letters that the family wrote back and forth. I felt that I got to know him pretty well, along with his family. When he was lost, I felt some sense of loss myself. Certainly, nothing that the family endured. I also felt really bad for the family. It was heartbreaking.

Heather:              I think the heart of a really good book is that it’s personal.

Jay:                        I think that’s something the reader will identify with.  They’ll see his personality right away and the personality of his family.

Heather:              What was surprising when you did the research on this book?

Jay:                        It was surprising that I connected so much with him and his family.  I’m surprised at how much the death of somebody who passed away or disappeared more than 70 years ago now still has effects. He has a sister who’s still alive. I know that she’s affected. His daughter is still alive. She misses having a father and so do his nephews miss having an uncle. There was a hole left in the family and there’s still vestiges of that hole even after all this time.

Heather:              Is there anything else you’d like to say about the book?

Jay:                        One thing. When there’s a close family connection, although I didn’t share every word with them, there were parts of the manuscript that I asked them to review and check. They only saw very small portion of the book. In the end, I really hope they like it. I hope they’re gratified by the work and the effort that went into it.

Heather:              Thanks so much for your time, Jay.

Jay:                        Very good. Thanks, Heather.

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Interview with an Author: Andrew Arthy

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Dr. Andrew Arthy is the co-author (with Morten Jessen) of “Focke-Wulf Fw 190 in the Battle for Sicily” and “Focke-Wulf Fw 190 in North Africa” as well as numerous eArticles that can be found on the website http://airwarpublications.com/

 

Heather:              What was it that got you interested in this field?

Andrew:              I’ve always had an interest in history for as long as I can remember. Since I was 5 or 6 years old really. And my interest did kind of become more specific as the years went by. I started looking at military history to start with, ancient history, modern history, just the military side of things and then WWII became my passion probably when I was 12 or 13, I suppose. I was a bit of a strange child, I just thought I was going to write a book when I was about 12 or 13 years old. I chose the Spitfire, I just thought it was going to be my topic. I spent 2 years studying the British fighter aircraft, the Spitfire, and then I realized the German side of things had received less coverage, so I decided to focus on the Luftwaffe, and for the last 17 years that’s kind of been my passion. Since then I’ve written a couple of books and a few articles and started a small publishing company. It’s been an interesting hobby, it keeps me busy.

Heather:              So, you decided to study military history at university?

Andrew:              I did. I did quite well at history in high school and had a couple of really good history teachers as well and they encouraged me to keep going with the history and so I went to university to get a Bachelor of Arts in history and ancient history; did my Honours and eventually did quite well in Honours so I thought, “Well, I will do a Ph.D.” I did that, which was quite a challenge, but I eventually got my Ph.D. in 2009. With my hobby history I generally look at the stories of the soldiers and the units, but for my Ph.D. I chose more of a higher-level topic. I looked at the American and British strategy in the Second World War, and why they decided to invade North Africa in 1942. It was good, it was a challenge. It was something different.

Heather:              You’ve taken quite an interest in oral history over the years. When did you start interviewing WWII veterans?

Andrew:              I started by writing letters. I’ve actually done a lot more correspondence than interviews. I think it was 2003 I decided I was going to try to contact surviving German Knight’s Cross (note: U.S. equivalent = Medal of Honor) winners. I went to the online phone book and just entered a few names into the phone book, found some addresses, and mailed off some letters. That’s how my correspondence with veterans kind of started.

I got some replies from these old German gentleman. They were quite surprised to receive a letter from a 19-year-old Australian, but they wrote back and shared some information, some stories, and it has just gone from there.  I realized in 2003 that time was running out. There weren’t too many of them left, so I thought I would have to try to get the stories while I could. And especially the German guys because they haven’t really talked about it that much. Their stories have been generally ignored so that’s why I kind of focused on that side of things.

I went to Europe for the first time in 2005, stayed with my friend Morten, my co-author and research partner, and we went on our first interview trip in 2005. We travelled around Germany in a rented car and visited veterans in obscure German towns which is quite a lot of fun. They were always very friendly and welcoming and you know, beer and biscuits and so forth and have a good chat with them and get their stories. It’s an important source because once they’re gone these stories are lost. If you think about daily life, things that you can’t find in the official records you can get from an interview.  So it’s a valuable source. Even though the memories might have faded they are still a valuable source of information. It was just nice to meet these fellows and put a face to the stories you are writing about.

Heather:              About how many stories do you think you have accumulated over the years?

Andrew:              A lot. I have got a folder on my computer where I include all the veterans’ names and I think there are 200-odd veterans and veterans’ families that I have talked to over the years, so a lot of stories. I haven’t had time to actually look at a lot of them.

Heather:              What other types of research do you do outside of just the oral histories?

Andrew:              When I began I didn’t know too much so it wasn’t too much, so it was mostly secondary sources, just what other people had written. In the early 2000’s I discovered the archives and started visiting them and taking my digital camera along and photographing documents. So I’ve now got 300,000 pages of documents from Germany, Britain, and America.  So that’s the main source.

Heather:              Holy Cow! 300,000 pages?

Andrew:              At least. A bit of a lunatic with the digital camera. I could do 5,000 pages a day at the archives.

Heather:              Tell me again which archives you went to? The German and the British…

Andrew:              German, British, American. I went to the Swedish last year which was interesting. I’ve been to the Australian archives. But mostly, the National Archives in Kew in London -that’s been the major source. That’s where I’ve gotten I don’t know how many thousand pages because it’s got so much material. Especially the Ultra, the Ultra decrypts that the British and Americans intercepted during the war. That’s been a very good source on the German side of things because not many people have actually accessed that source yet and made use of it.

Heather:              Oh yeah, that’s interesting.

Andrew:              Surprisingly, so many people write about German military units but don’t consult the Ultra records, which are unpublished material and not available anywhere else. So it’s always surprised me that no one has dug into that source yet. It’s been available now for 15-20 years. To me that’s why you can keep publishing things that people haven’t done.

Heather:              Yeah, I mean I think there is probably a lot like that. Recently, in the last 10 years a lot of people “discovered” these recorded conversations of POWs in the US. But also…

Andrew:              Yeah, yeah. I ‘discovered’ those too in the early 2000’s and I think 5 years later a German scholar released his book saying he discovered them so I guess…

Heather:              Whoever gets a book out first!

Andrew:              I know!

Heather:              The spoils go to whoever gets the book out first.

Andrew:              That’s the problem when you start researching, all of a sudden you just want to keep finding more material, and you kind of forget about actually producing something from it.

Heather:              I think it’s easy to get caught in the research, and not start writing. It’s really hard.

Andrew:              Well, once you’ve got your topic you want to find everything you possibly can so that’s why I ended up going to Swedish archives and the likes because I want to track down every possible lead. It is fun but really at some point you have to sit down and actually do something with all this material.

Heather:              So, eventually you started writing, and when you write you want to publish. So you think about independently publishing or going with a large publisher or military publisher. When and why did you start Air War Publications?

Andrew:              Morten and I wrote the first book, “Focke-Wulf Fw 190 in North Africa” and we published it with Classic Publications in England which is pretty much the best aviation history publishing company in the world. They are classics on the subject so we’re very happy with what they did and the book was well received and looked nice.  But we also wanted to have a bit more control with our next book. So around 2010 our second book which is kind of a sequel to the first one, it’s about the Focke-Wulf Fw 190 in the Sicilian campaign in the summer of 1943.

In 2010 we were approaching finishing that book and deciding where we were going to publish and so forth. We thought we wanted a bit more control this time, control on all aspects: the maps and the artwork and the photos – we wanted to make sure we had the best possible quality there. You don’t always have that with publishing companies. They do a good job, but we want it to be the perfect book. Or as perfect as it could get. So we decided we would do it ourselves and we started a little publishing company, Air War Publications.  We published our first book, “Focke-Wulf Fw 190 in the Battle for Sicily” in late 2010.

We were able to do exactly what we wanted, we included everything we wanted, all the chapters, all the appendices, the artwork, the maps were all exactly as we wanted to do.   Having your own publishing company allows you the freedom to do the job properly, and we were very happy with the results. I don’t think there has been a negative word about the book from anyone. All the reviews have been positive and everyone really likes it so…And they are all waiting for us to do some more. So, it was a very good decision. It’s a fair bit of work running the entire process yourself, the printing runs and distributing books and bookstores and so on and so forth but it’s rewarding because the product is as good as it can be, and you’ve got full control so…I’ve just got to actually publish some more books now. This is the next challenge!

Heather:              Right. And it’s hard to write quickly enough to fill all of the demand, isn’t it?

Andrew:              Yeah, I mean our subject: German Air Force and WWII, there is a pretty hardcore bunch of enthusiasts who want new material all the time. It’s impossible for us to keep up with the demand that they want. New stuff every year, new photos, and new this and new that. New first-hand accounts take a long time to compile so… And to get it to the standard we want it to be also takes a lot of effort, and I’ve been working on my current book for 13 years.  If you chose to write about easy subjects we could probably pump out a book every year but that is not the way we want to go. We want to do things that have never been done before.

Heather:              Right. And do it in depth.

Andrew:              It takes years and years to get the job done properly.

Heather:              So, tell me a little bit more about your book on Sicily and what you did that you probably wouldn’t have been able to do with another publisher.

Andrew:              Well the first thing was we did a full color book whereas often with military publishers you get a certain 16 pages of colors or 8 pages of color.  But with our book it was the best quality paper, really good printer which was close by to Morten so he could check on how the quality was once the first copy came out of the printer. We had complete control over how it looked once it came out of the printer whereas if you publish with a regular publisher you don’t have that control. It’s all out of your hands. We didn’t have to cut out appendices or chapters. We could include all the chapters and materials we wanted to in the book, which is again something new. You’ve got page restrictions with a regular publisher. We had all the maps throughout the book rather than just in a center section so every time we needed a map in a certain place we could put it there.

Morten did the layout. He was able to do an excellent job of that. We couldn’t complain about any aspect of it because it was all ours, you know. Whereas, if you do it with a regular publisher… Every photo that deserved to be full page we could do it. It was nice having that control.

Heather:              So, your most recent publication is an article about Kurt Bühligen. Why did you decide to write about him?

Andrew:              We asked our colleague, Leo Etgen, from Costa Rica, a couple years ago to do some biographies for us. One of his favorite units is Jagdgeschwader 2, so he decided to write a few little biographies about men from that unit. And one of the men was Kurt Bühligen. I thought, “Oh, this is good. Maybe we could do a little bit more with this.”

So, I started doing a bit of digging.  I think when he sent it it was a thousand words or so, but it turned out to be a ten-thousand word article so we kind of added a fair bit to it, Morten and Leo and I.  As far as I know it is the most detailed story of this man that had ever been written – surprisingly because he was a pretty important figure in the Luftwaffe during WWII. He was a unit commander, he was an ace, he flew against the British and Americans. It was a story we thought deserved ten thousand words and deserved to be done because no one has ever done it before.

He was a very modest kind of guy so trying to discover his personality was a bit of a challenge. I think he died in 1984, and he never really told his story after the war. It is hard to research him.  We had to find a lot of sources to get his personality. We are happy with the end result.

Heather:              Yeah, it was a great article. I really enjoyed reading it. Tell me a little bit about what was most surprising during your research. What did you learn that you didn’t know before?

Andrew:              The surprising thing was there were strange stories on the Internet. People seemed to have made things up about him for some reason. I was curious why this happened. For example, a story seemed to be repeated several times that he was shot down by the Russians in 1945 and captured by them. That was not true at all. But for some reason this story has become accepted truth.

Heather:              Why do you think that is? Why do you think people make this stuff up?

Andrew:              I have no idea. I’m still trying to work that out. Why someone would start the story and then continue it, and why it has become accepted. It’s baffling to me. I don’t know what the source could be because he did a couple of interviews, and he made it clear he was captured (by the western Allies) at the end of the war. Why they chose to make this up I don’t know. There is also a story that he was serving as a flying instructor for the Russians during his time in captivity in Russian in the late 1940s. Again, that just came from nowhere as well from someone who decided to make that up. It’s very strange. People decided to make these things up about this fellow.

Heather:              It’s good that you could set the record straight.

Andrew:              Yes, indeed. He deserved it. By all accounts he was just a really nice, caring commanding officer. And he started from the ranks. He went from a mechanic in 1937 to a being a Geschwaderkommodore (Wing Commander) in 1945. By the end of the war he was leading a thousand men – the guy that started the war as the lowest rank pilot.  A pretty amazing story really.

Heather:              Do you think that sort of thing…that kind of rise in the ranks was only available to guys in the German army?

Andrew:              In the Air Force definitely. I can’t imagine it would’ve happened in the RAF or the American Air Force. You couldn’t come from the lowest rank to be a unit commander. It was the attrition really. Just through attrition he could rise from mechanic to the commander. I get the impression he was probably a bit of a reluctant commander. He kept surviving, his comrades kept getting killed, and so he kind of kept rising through the ranks. I don’t think he ever had any plans to get there, but he was the last man standing really. Interesting character, interesting story.

Heather:              Very well done. Thank you for bringing it to the world.

Andrew:              No problem.

Heather:              Thank you for spending a few minutes talking to me, Andrew. I really appreciate it.

 

The e-Article about Kurt Buehligen can be found here: http://airwarpublications.com/product/the-life-of-kurt-buhligen/

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We appreciate your support in our work – in particular, we have hundreds of interviews that need to be transcribed, videos to edit and post, and summaries of the men to write.  If you feel called to help, you can use Amazonsmile when you shop Amazon or give directly through Paypal.  Thank you for helping us preserve these stories for the following generations.

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Writing World War II: An Exercise in Love, Hurt and Satisfaction

From Guest Blogger and Author Jay Stout:

I write about World War II—six books so far—and I love it.  Although it seems odd, even thoughtlessly naïve, to “love” the act of writing about the most brutal episode in human history, it’s the right word.   Capturing the stories of these men and putting their very real and raw recollections into the wider context of doctrine, strategy and operations is something I enjoy greatly.  It’s a labor that ensures that the achievements of these men will be available to future generations.  And it is one that preserves their individual legacies into perpetuity.

Moreover, there is real gratification in doing it in a way that not only makes sense to the reader, but also makes the reader want more. It’s a craft or skill that gives satisfaction in the same way—I assume—that a woodworker takes pleasure from creating a beautiful piece of furniture, or that a surgeon takes from perfectly performing a complex procedure.

And I won’t deny that I derive some thrill at writing about their combat experiences.  This is so, even though I know from my own career that “an exciting story” is often a polished and primped version of an event that was more likely marked by shock and trouser-soiling terror—emotions that are more typical of actual combat.

I also love what the books do, the reactions they elicit.  The best are the messages I receive from the families of the men:  “When dad read your book, it reminded him of stories he had never shared with any of us.  We talked like we hadn’t talked in years.”  Or similarly, “I loved grandpa, but he was always stooped and quiet and never talked about the war.  It wasn’t until I read your book that I really understood what he had seen and done.”  It’s prideful, but I love that my writing makes a real and positive difference in the lives of others.

But when I start a new World War II book, I feel a certain melancholy. I know that I’m going to be hurt because of the certainty that the friendships I form will not—cannot—last.  It is not only that the conversations I enjoy with these men will grow fewer as the book is finished and we move on with our respective lives.  But also, the men I grow to know during the writing of a book are approaching the ends of their lives.  Some of them will “Go West” before the book is even finished.  It has happened many times already.  As most of the remaining men are now in their early nineties, it cannot be otherwise.

Stupid tyranny of time.

On the other hand, I’ve found myself making friends with men who are long dead.  Through their combat reports, diaries and letters home, I feel that I know and understand many of them.  I also recognize personalities very similar to those of my own comrades. There is something reassuring about the timelessness and consistency of human nature, regardless of the setting.

Finally, I love that so many others are also avid historians—amateur and otherwise—of World War II.  It validates my passion for the subject and, quite frankly, means that there is a market for the work I do.  More importantly, it also means that there are others who are also actively preserving this important period of our history.  I’m particularly impressed by the work of Heather Steele and Charley Koenig and the others who work on The World War II History Project.  In particular, their efforts to preserve and translate the memories of German veterans will help fill an important gap that would otherwise go wanting—much to the detriment of all of us.  They deserve, I believe, a very heartfelt thank you.

Lieutenant Colonel (ret) Jay A. Stout flew fighters in the Marine Corps, including 37 missions during Operation DESERT STORM.  His latest book, published by Penguin Random House, is Hell’s Angels: The True Story of the 303rd Bomb Group in World War II.

His website is jayastout.com

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