Veterans Radio is dedicated to all the men and
women who have served or are currently serving
in the Armed Forces of the United States of America.
And now, here's your host, Dale Thromberg. And
good morning, American. Welcome to Veterans Radio.
This is another one of our special programs with
our new host here on Veterans Radio, which is
Dwight Zimmerman. And Dwight is on the phone
talking to us live from Brooklyn, New York. Good
morning, Dwight. Good morning, Dale. Glad to
be here. Well, it's going to be your program
today, so kind of give us a little profile of
what's coming up after our first break. I will
be happy to. I'm really happy with our guest
today, Craig Simons. He's a distinguished historian.
He wrote a thrilling account of a pivotal battle
in World War II, the Battle of Midway. And we
have New York Times bestselling author Larry
Bond, who's going to be talking about his exciting
new book. exit plan, which you would swear was
torn from today's headlines, because it involves
Navy SEALs, Iran, and a nuclear weapons program.
Well, it's really exciting. I can't wait to hear
both of those interviews, Dwight. But I'll talk
a little bit about an event that occurred yesterday
in New York City, and that was the arrival of
the Space Shuttle Enterprise. Yes, that was very
exciting for the whole city. Today's papers are
splashed with coverage all over the place on
it. Of course, it was obviously a big topic in
the television broadcasts last night. It was
quite exciting. We had people lined up. They
did a flyover of the Statue of Liberty, so the
people on Liberty Island had a ringside seat
to the event. aircraft landed at JFK Airport
and a barge will take the space shuttle up to
the Hudson River where it will be at its new
home. Is it going to be on the Intrepid? On the
Intrepid, thank you, yes. Okay, that's alright.
I'm still anxious to go and see the Intrepid.
I've been told I have to go and see this. Yes,
you do. I've been there a couple of times. The
first time was shortly after we had Mementos
from the Iraq War, and they had a wonderful display
there. They've got an incredible array of aircraft
and helicopters. It's wonderful. And then they
did this massive restoration and reconstruction,
and it is something. get into flight simulators,
play games, a wide range of interactive displays.
They've really done a great job. Well, I encourage
all of our listeners to go and look for information
on the USS Intrepid. It's in New York Harbor.
And also to go, there's some great pictures online
about the space shuttle enterprises that arise
in New York. It's a fascinating story. I'm hoping
that the space program will continue on to bigger
and better things because it certainly was a
great program and really showed what we could
do here as a country once we get behind something.
You got that right. I know, I know I do. We're
going to be taking our first break right now
and when we come back, White will be hosting
today and so I'll be quiet after that and we'll
be right back after these messages. You're listening
to Veterans Radio. Well, we're back at AtEase,
the program that we talk about military themed
stories and I am happy to welcome my first guest
today, Craig Simons. Craig, how are you? I'm
great, good morning, Greg. Yes, great to have
you on the program. Thank you, glad to be here.
Okay, so the battle of Midway. This is obviously
a very important battle, and your book is just
absolutely riveting. But the fascinating thing
is that while you're one of our nation's most
respected authorities on the Civil War, you shared
the Lincoln Prize in 2009 with James McPherson.
Your book was Lincoln and his admirals. And now
you jump into the next century and do a book
about a pivotal naval battle, World War II. What
prompted this? Well, that's, yeah, other people
have commented upon that. You're absolutely right.
I have been doing research on the Civil War for
nearly four decades and to jump into World War
II does seem perhaps like I'm jumping a century,
but I will remind you and our listeners, too,
that I did teach naval history to midshipmen
at the Naval Academy for almost four decades
and we certainly covered the Battle of Midway
there. In addition to which, I have to be honest
and tell you that my editor at Oxford University
Press, which published both books, after the
Lincoln book came out and was so well received
asked me what I wanted to do next and I said
I would like to at least think about a project
in which I examined Franklin Roosevelt as the
commander in chief in World War II in the same
way I examined Lincoln as commander in chief
in the Civil War and they said well that's a
terrific idea but we would also like you to do
a book in our series called Pivotal Moments in
American History and clearly one of those pivotal
moments was the Battle of Midway. Well, initially
I said, well, I'm not sure that's needed. I mean,
there are good books on the Battle of Midway
already. Walter Lord wrote a classic book on
the Battle of Midway, and Gordon Prang, only
a decade or two after that, wrote another great
book. So are you sure there's room for one more?
Well, of course, my editor knows exactly how
to get to me. He flattered me, said, ah, yes,
but not written by you. So I ended up writing
yet another book on the Battle of Midway. Man,
enjoyed very much doing it. I think found some
new things. You're right. Walter Lord's incredible
victory book on the battle has been a benchmark.
How is your book different from his and the earlier
other counts? One of the advantages I had was
the declassification of materials that were still
secret at the time that Walter Lord wrote. uh...
walter lord it was it not only great historian
but a great wordsmith as well in fact i suppose
that the greatest compliment to him is that if
you visit the uh... world war two memorial in
washington dc and i hope everyone who's listening
has an opportunity to do that uh... you'll notice
that on the pacific theater side of that uh...
impressive memorial is up couple sentences from
walter lord's book carved into marble and letters
six inches high now there's no greater testimonial
to an historian than to have that happen. So
it's true. But look at the title of Walter Lord's
book, Incredible Victory, and then look at the
title of Gordon Prang's book, Miracle at Midway.
Both of these books talk about the astonishing
turnaround in that critical five minutes from
10 .25 until 10 .30 in the morning on June 4th,
1942, when the whole history, not only of the
Pacific War, but the history of the world, tilted.
on the fulcrum of the Battle of Midway. It seemed
so providential, so miraculous that they attributed
that to a large extent to circumstance and opportunity.
I tried to look at what individuals, what personalities,
what human beings and the decisions that they
made and the actions that they took brought about
that miracle, that providential turnaround. I'm
looking at the people. That's one perhaps not
entirely new. but somewhat different approach
that I took in my book. And then, as I mentioned,
there's new information that's available, information
that wasn't available to Walter Lord or to Gordon
Plang. Some of it provided by two superb scholars
who looked at the Japanese side of the battle,
Anthony Tolley and John Partial, who in their
book, Shattered Sword, great title by the way,
looked at the Japanese side and what was their
motivation. How did this come about? What were
the personalities of those individuals? So I
tried to bring all of these things together.
and tell the story in the hope of a fresh way
to expose not only what happened, but who did
it and why they did it. Why did the Japanese
go after Midway in the first place? Well, that's
interesting. Midway was officially the target
of the operation, but it wasn't really the objective,
and I'll explain what I mean by that. Midway
was a tiny little two -island atoll, 1 ,100 miles
north -northwest Honolulu, and really just an
outpost for America. As a target, it's not that
important a place. It does have an airfield on
it, so it's a useful outpost for the United States.
But the reason the Japanese went after it was
that Yamamoto, who had planned the attack on
Pearl Harbor, was excruciatingly disappointed
not to have found and destroyed the American
aircraft carriers in that strike on December
7, 1941. Since then, in January and in February,
the United States had used those carriers to
target Japanese outposts, and the Marshalls,
and the Gilberts, and elsewhere. What Yalimodu
wanted to do was to attack an American base,
in this case Midway, with a large enough force
that the American carriers would feel compelled
to come out from their base at Pearl Harbor into
deep water. The Japanese carriers could then
pounce on them and destroy them. The real objective
in this campaign was to find and destroy the
American aircraft carriers. That's what it was
all about. How did the Americans learn about
this? Well, that's a great part of the story,
absolutely. And Walter Word knew a little of
this, but not very much because it was still
classified. Gordon Prang knew more of it. But
there's been a lot of information that's come
out just in the last couple of decades, really
declassified only in the 1970s, that the United
States had broken a significant portion of what's
called the five -number code, the Japanese operational
code. Now we've been reading their diplomatic
code for a couple of months, but the operational
code was extraordinarily complicated, and we
didn't really crack the code there until the
early spring of 1942. And the guy who gets most
of the credit for this is a a commander, a Navy
commander, named Rochefort, Joseph Rochefort,
who commanded a team of dedicated Crip analysts,
codebreakers if you would, in the basement of
the 11th Naval District headquarters in Honolulu,
a dark dungeon they called it, where they spent
the entire day and sometimes 20 -hour days or
more breaking through all the layers of secrecy
that wrapped themselves around all the Japanese
Naval radio messages that came out. and were
able to wrinkle out just enough information from
that to let Admiral Chester Nimitz know that
the Japanese did intend to target Midway more
or less when they were coming and more or less
what strength they would be coming in. And so
that advantage significantly helped even the
odds. It was not, let me emphasize, it was not
a complete reading of the Japanese naval messages.
The extent to which we had been able to break
their code has been somewhat exaggerated in popular
literature. We could not read their mail. We
got little bits and tiny pieces, ten percent
of ten percent of the messages that they sent.
So we were able to read maybe one out of a hundred
words. But from that, Rochert was able to apply
his understanding of Japanese culture, Japanese
language, and Japanese tradition to let Admiral
Nimitz know what he was pretty sure was going
to happen. and that gave Nimitz sufficient confidence
to resist the Japanese attack at Midway. Yes,
that was one of the many fascinating aspects
in your book, The Battle of Midway, that you
went into great detail and depth about how Rochefort
and his team cracked the code and assembled it
and in some cases inferred and speculated on
actions and in one respect made calculated guesses.
Yes, that's true. There were a lot of blanks.
If you look at a typical message that was supposedly
broken, it might say something like, blank blank
kaga, blank blank depart, blank blank may, blank
blank arrive. And from that, Rochefort and his
team had to put that in the context of all the
other messages, where they were coming from,
how many there were, where they were going. who
was sending, who was not sending. In a few cases,
they even were able to recognize what was known
as the fist. That is the characteristic tempo
of a telegrapher's signal. To know who was actually
sending the message and being aware where that
particular sender was stationed, they could then
extrapolate what the message might mean. So there
was a lot of, I hesitate to call it guesswork,
but I suppose there's no better word for it.
I would say informed guesswork. that Rochefort
and his team applied to what they were able to
break. So it was not simply a matter of breaking
the code and reading the mail. There was a lot
of intensive hard work involved. Yes, there was
a breakthrough of sorts when Rochefort being
challenged about, because there was some controversy
of whether or not the Japanese objective was
centered around Midway or some other location.
Correct me on this, but didn't a signal go up
from Pearl Harbor to Midway say, send us a message
that your water treatment system is broken down?
Yeah, that's true. What had happened is Rochefort
and his team knew. They were absolutely certain
Midway was the target. They had no doubt in their
minds. But the problem was that his superiors
in Washington, the Naval Communications Office
and the Intelligence Office there, known as OP20G,
and run by a Captain Redmond. He was not so sure.
Redmond was not a cryptanalyst. He was an administrator.
He looked at this message traffic and said, boy,
that really doesn't say much to me. Are you sure?
I really think it might be something else. Maybe
it's the West Coast. What if it's San Francisco
and you're wrong? And so what Rochefort wanted
to do was demonstrate, not for his own benefit,
because he was pretty sure, but to demonstrate
for Captain Redmond's benefit. that it was in
fact Midway. The Japanese had used the code phrase
AF in referring to the target of their attack.
And what he needed was information to prove AF
was Midway. So you're right, they sent a request
out by submarine cable, where the Japanese could
not read it, to Midway saying, let's send us
a radio message in the clear saying that your
distillers have broken down and you are running
low on fresh water. And then he waited. Sure
enough, hours later, a Japanese message went
out saying, AF is short of water. Well, now he
had the smoking gun. Now he could demonstrate
to the doubters in Washington that AF was indeed
Midway and that he was justified in predicting
that that was the Japanese target. Ironically,
Rochefort, instead of getting praise and a medal
for his role in what wound up being an American
victory, actually wound up being punished for
his efforts, though not by Nimitz. What can you
tell us about this? Well, punish is a strong
word, but I suppose not an inappropriate one.
Rochefort, like many brilliant people, was a
difficult personality. He was annoyed that people
would not believe him when he gave his predictions.
He believed that the folks in Washington had
no business looking over his shoulder, so he
brought a little of this upon himself by his
attitude. But it is absolutely true that the
Op 20G, his supervisors in Washington found him
annoying, shared that annoyance with the Chief
of Naval Operations, Admiral Ernest J. King,
and when Nimitz recommended Rochefort for a medal
and a promotion, as a result of the extraordinary
work that he had done in getting the United States
Navy ready for the Battle of Midway. King turned
it down. He said, no, this was a work done by
a team of men. You don't get a medal for people
just doing their job, which is sort of an absurd
statement to make. We do it all the time if they
do their job extraordinarily well, which surely
Rochefort did. And worse than that, Rochefort
was reassigned from intelligence work. into construction
work. He was actually sent to the San Francisco
Bay area to construct a floating dry dock, which
he did quite well. He supervised the construction
of that. And when the war came to an end, he
was actually back in intelligence working on
the plans for the invasion of mainland Japan,
which, thank God, we never had to do. But you're
right, he'd never got the medal he deserved while
he was alive, although there is a happy ending
of sorts to the story, and that is in 1986. He
was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal posthumously
by President Reagan. So he did finally get the
recognition, the public recognition that he deserved
and had earned, but not during his lifetime.
Well, at least there was that. One part about
the battle itself that really stood out for me
is the fact that the senior commanders on both
sides, Nagomal, Fletcher, and Spruance, Well,
they were black shoe admirals, you know, in command
of carrier fleets. That's true, and this came
about by accident. You know, it was not supposed
to be that way. For those of our listeners who
aren't aware, although I suppose most of you
probably are, the surface, the warfare communities
within the Navy were not completely distinct
from one another, but they did have special scare
sets. And those who were pilots who had earned
their gold wings were known as brown shoes. and
that is to say they knew not only how to fly
but what were their particular needs of air squadrons
and air groups and they were the ones who were
assigned to command carriers and the most senior
of these was Admiral Vice Admiral Van William
F. Halsey but Halsey had come down with horrible
skin disease that absolutely necessitated his
going into the hospital virtually on the eve
of the greatest carrier battle in world history
at Midway. And although he recognized the necessity
for it, it must have been horribly painful, both
mentally and physically, to have to turn that
command over to someone else. And when Nimitz
asked him, well, who can we give this to? He
said, well, my subordinate, Raymond Spurwitz,
who commands my screen, knows all of my officers,
has been operating with me for most of a year.
He's the man I trust to do this. So Raymond Spurwitz,
who was a cruiser destroyer man, commanded Task
Force 17 of two carriers, and Frank Jack Fletcher,
who had commanded in the Battle of the Coral
Sea and was also a cruiser destroyer man, commanded
Task Force 16 and was the senior American officer
present at Midway. So the Americans were commanded
by two ship drivers, as we call them in the service,
that is to say surface warfare officers, with
very little carrier experience. At least Frank
Jack Fletcher had commanded a carrier force in
the Coral Sea. But Raymond Spruance, of course,
had no experience in that at all. So the Americans
were being led by individuals with technically
little experience in commanding carriers in battle.
And Nagoma was a big gun admiral himself. Nagumo
Chiriki, who commanded what the Japanese called
the Kido Butai, or the Mobile Striking Force,
in this case four carrier task force, He had
experience, at least with carriers. Remember,
Nagumo had commanded the strike on Pearl Harbor
when he had six carriers. So he had not only
commanded the strike on Pearl Harbor, he had
then commanded the Japanese carrier force in
the Indian Ocean and elsewhere. So for six months
and more, he had been in command of a fast carrier
strike force. So he had that experience. But
his training, as you say, was in torpedoes. He
was a torpedo man. The Japanese, on the other
hand, didn't have quite the same division between
warfare specialties that the Americans did. So,
Nagumo was probably, at least in terms of experience,
better prepared for the Battle of Midway than
his American counterparts. Although, as things
turned out, that didn't matter. Yes. Well, he
seemed very rigid and also, oddly enough, reports
say he wasn't much of a gambler. Well, Nagumo
was a professional who played by the rules, who
knew what the protocol and the doctrine was,
and tried to follow that protocol and doctrine.
It's very hard to second -guess Nagumo. We can
do it after the fact now because he lost, and
given the disparity of forces, he ought to have
won. But if you find the moments where he makes
specific decisions and think about now what would
have been the right decision to make at that
moment. It's hard to say at any given moment
he makes the wrong decision. But clearly, after
the fact, we can look at it and say that did
not work out for him. The classic case is on
the morning of June 4th, when he first hears
from one of the scout planes that there are American
surface forces 200 miles away, and about a half
hour later learns that at least one of those
is an aircraft carrier. Well, now the carriers
are his primary target objective. That's what
he's after. One thing he could have done was
launch right away. The problem was he only had
36 airplanes ready to go. Out of nearly 300 that
he had totally available, 285, 290, the numbers
are not entirely clear. But if he launches only
36 airplanes, they would have no fighter cover.
They would have no cooperation from torpedo bombers.
So he said, no, no, that's not a good idea. I'm
going to wait. I'm going to recover the airplanes
coming back from the attack on Midway. rearm
and refuel those airplanes and then send off
an entire coordinated strike force, and that
would be better. It sure seemed so at the time,
but of course, even as he made that decision,
the American dive bombers were en route to his
position. We're almost coming up to the break,
but one thing I would like to briefly talk about
is, even though accounts focus primarily on the
Japanese mistakes, the Americans made a few also.
Oh, a number of mistakes. You know, we look at
this event and want to look back and say, you
know, we did everything right. Luck was on our
side. Providence was on our side. Now, whatever
you want to measure that. But there were lots
of mistakes made. There are mistakes in every
battle, I suppose. But they really stand out
here because Admiral Nimitz had gone to great
extent to make sure he had three aircraft carriers
available for this battle. The Yorktown was patched
up and put together with failing wire and scotch
tape metaphorically at least and sent out to
the operation so that we would have three carriers
but one of those carriers played virtually no
role whatsoever in the battles on the morning
of June 4th and that was the USS Hornet and the
story of the USS Hornet and its air group is
a very complicated perplexing difficult and in
the end absolutely amazing story that I probably
can't summarize and the brief time we have on
the air. But I hope your readers will have the
opportunity to read it in my book. How's that
for a plug? That's anticipating what I would
say. I've been talking with Craig Simons, the
author of this excellent book, The Battle of
Midway, which is coming out in paperback soon.
It's out in hardcover right now. You probably
will not be out in paperback until late fall,
I would say October, November. It is in hardback
right now. Obviously available on Amazon or at
your local Barnes and Noble or our other favorite
bookstore. Yes, and anyone who is interested
in a gripping battle well told, it would be very
well served in getting this book. That is for
darn sure. Craig, you were at a conference this
morning. from what I understand. I am. In fact,
I was going to mention to you and to your listeners,
I am standing at the ferry dock on Hatteras Inlet
in North Carolina, where the weather is cold
and breezy and cars are lining up to get on the
ferry boat. As soon as we finish talking, I'm
heading off to a conference on Flags Over Hatteras,
which is about the Civil War battles at sea in
the vicinity here of North Carolina. So I'm having
a great time. But always good to talk to you,
Dwight. I appreciate it. Yes, and it's wonderful
talking with you too, Craig. I really enjoy this.
I'm also going to congratulate you. I saw that
Military History Quarterly selected the Battle
of Midway as a best book of 2011. Wonderful honor.
That's terrific. Very gratifying. Thank you.
Thank you. So I'll let you get on that ferry
boat right now, and Craig, thank you so much,
and I hope that... What's your next book, by
the way? Well, I'm going to be working on that
book I mentioned to my editor when we first decided
I should do Midway, and that is something about
Franklin Roosevelt as Commander -in -Chief in
World War II. Oh, great, great. I'm looking forward
to that. So, take care, thank you again, and
good luck. Thank you, Dwight, and enjoy that
conversation. Bye. Bye. The Battle of Midway
by Craig L. Simons. It's published by Oxford
University Press. Craig is an absolutely wonderful
writer. I've had the delight in working with
him in the past. He is a fantastic individual
and yes, you would be very well served in picking
up this book and also his book, Lincoln and His
Admirals, which in 2009 was a co -winner of the
Lincoln Prize. So this is a wonderful thing.
Dale, how are we doing here? We're doing just
fine, Dwight. We're getting ready to take a break
in about ten seconds and we'll be back with Dwight
Zimmerman and his next guest, Larry Bond, right
after the Medal of Honor. You're listening to
Veterans Radio. Intense enemy fire had pinned
down leading elements of his company, committed
to secure commanding ground. when Burke left
the command post to rally and urged the men to
follow him toward three bunkers, impeding the
advance. Dashing to an exposed vantage position,
he threw several grenades at the bunkers. Then
returning for an M1 rifle and adapter, he made
a lone assault, wiping out the position and killing
the crew. Closing on the center bunker, he lobbed
grenades through the opening, and with his pistol,
killed three of its occupants, attempting to
surround him. Ordering his men forward, he charged
the third emplacement, catching several grenades
in midair and hurling them back at the enemy.
Inspired by his display of valor, his men stormed
forward, overran the hostile position, but were
again pinned down by increased fire. Securing
a light machine gun and three boxes of ammunition,
Burke dashed through the impact area to an open
knoll, set up his gun, and poured a crippling
fire into the ranks of the enemy, killing approximately
75. Although wounded, He ordered more ammunition,
reloading and destroying two mortar emplacements
and a machine gun position with his accurate
fire. Cradling the weapon in his arms, he then
led his men forward, killing some 25 more of
the retreating enemy and securing the objective.
Burke's heroic action and daring exploits inspired
his small force of 35 troops. The Medal of Honor
series is a production of Veterans Radio. This
is Dwight Zimmerman at AtEase on Veterans Radio
Network. Welcome. And I am happy to welcome our
next guest here, Larry Bond, a New York Times
bestselling author who is going to be talking
about his new book that comes out next month
on May 18th. It's called Exit Plan, and it is
one exciting story, that's for sure. Larry, welcome.
Dwight, hi. Thanks for having me. So I'm happy
that you're here. So tell us a little bit about
this book. How did you arrange to have Iran and
the SEALs and the United States set this whole
thing up so that your story can come out? Well,
you're breaking up just a little bit. Oh, I'm
sorry to hear that. We got a little technical
difficulty here. But the phrase torn from today's
headlines tends to be overused. But as it turns
out, this story, you'd swear that you were right
there in the situation room. Well, it's supposed
to give you that impression. We try for that,
Dwight. But this situation between Israel and
Iran has been going on for years. It's the kind
of thing that really plays to a writer's advantage,
because it's this There's great tension. There's
tremendous forces involved. There's a lot at
stake. Things are moving very, very slowly, diplomatically.
And nobody's shooting each other, which isn't
a good thing, but things are moving slowly. Therefore,
I've got time to write a book, get it edited,
and get it on the street. Hopefully, nobody will
shoot at each other before that happens. My job
as a writer is to look at that situation, knock
the props out in the first chapter, and then
see what happens naturally after that. Okay.
Exit Plan is the third in a series of Jerry Mitchell
books. Can you tell us a little bit about this?
Well, Jerry Mitchell is the name of the hero,
of course, and he's an aviator who has a little
bit of background about him. I had a crash early
in his training and lost use of one of his full
range of motion in his hand, so to speak. So
he can't fly anymore, he wants to stay in the
Navy, and he goes into some nuclear submarine.
He's actually based on a real world character
that I knew. He didn't go to the fellow that
I knew was on surface ships like I was. And I
said, what if he wanted to go in a submarine?
And that was sort of what the first book was
about, Dangerous Ground. It was about him getting
into submarines and then finding out about what
life was like aboard them. And then think Hornblower
after that. In the next book, he's now a department
head, higher rank, more responsibility. He's
aboard a different ship, a different boat, as
the submariners say. Then in this book, he's
now advancing in rank again. He's the executive
officer aboard an Ohio class SSGN USS Michigan.
Okay, the story of Exit Plan basically is he's
part of, he joins with the SEAL team to extract
two Iranian nationals who are involved in the
Iran's nuclear weapons program. And of course,
things start going bad very quickly, and one
thing after another turns into this incredibly
fast -paced gripping story. I have to tell you,
when I got your book in the mail, it was like
great, and then I said, oh, I know what's going
to happen to me now. I couldn't put the book
down. I really couldn't. It was just so hard.
You wrote such a compelling story, and just when
you figured out which way the story was going
to go, you threw in a surprise here. You threw
in another surprise there. You had a lot of twists
and turns in this tale. I was hoping that things
would turn out right in the end, but it turned
out in a way that was completely unexpected for
me. And I've been in the industry as an editor
and a writer for over 30 years, and you surprised
me a lot here. Well, thank you. That's high praise.
My principal job as a writer is to deprive people
of good night's sleep. You did that. I'm a writer.
That's the highest praise I can get. That somebody
couldn't put it down, that they were totally
immersed and engrossed in the story. I mean,
everybody calls me a writer, I think of myself
as a storyteller. I mean, I tell a story and
I happen to write it down, so I don't have to
tell it multiple times. When I can immerse you
in the story and make you ask questions about
how are they going to get out of this, that's
really what every writer wants to do. I should
surprise you on almost every page because otherwise,
if you know what's going to happen next, then
why are you reading the story? You're reading
the story to find out because you don't know.
Exactly. You were a co -founder instrumental
in creating this whole techno thriller genre
and I have to admire your ability of when you're
talking about the different weapon systems and
the gear and the hardware you give us just enough
so that we feel that we know what this stuff
is how it functions and everything without going
too far and you have a deft ability to know when
to back off especially when we're getting to
the climate Well, I've tried to build that skill.
The gear, the nuclear submarines, the jet fighters,
the satellites. That stuff is there for the same
reason they have horses in a Western. It's there
for the heroes and the other characters to do
their job. And some of it's fun to talk about.
And I've seen riders who get so wrapped up in
the muzzle velocity of an M16 rifle. or the or
the exact way you trigger a claim or a mine,
and they... A lot of numbers makes people's eyes
glaze over because it's hard to hold those facts
in your head. Is it important what the muzzle
velocity of an M16 rifle is? If it's important,
put it in there, spend a little time on it, then
drive on. But to just throw in numbers to show
how much you know, I don't think it accomplishes
anything. Yes, and the other aspect, some authors
in the techno -thriller genre Their characters
are two -dimensional, cardboard, not yours. You
flesh them out very well. Talking about exit
plan, your characters are living people. You
really care about them. I would like you to talk
about the two Iranians specifically because it
is such a touching and poignant story. These
two people really struggled. with the decision
to betray their country. So please, tell our
listeners more about them. Well, I've got an
interesting relationship with the Iranian people
in that while I was going through officer candidate
school, we had an Iranian company in our regiment.
These were guys that the Shah sent over during
the 1970s and they were being trained to use
US equipment. not only where it was there uh...
we were juliet company and right right right
across the passageway from us romeo company yeah
i know it was a joke and they uh... they were
the iranians and these guys were sharp they were
all, of course they were all full of fingers
and they were good guys i often imagine what
happened to them when they went back and then
there's the revolution and how many that made
it through that and that's another story there
were also the first six women in the iranian
navy were in my regiment And these gals were
all beautiful. Barrier breakers, of course. And
they were paid as E1s, even though they were
commissioned as officers. And you couldn't ask
one for a date. You had to ask all six out. So
you had to get six guys together and go down
there. And they all run around and check with
each other. Then they go up and ask the men.
And once it was OK with the men, then those six
women would go out with you as a group. I learned
a lot about the Iranian people and the Iranian
culture from my exposure with those folks. I
don't see them as the rifle -waving, jihadist
nuts that sometimes gets portrayed on the news.
I see them as people with a long history and
a very complex and cultured civilization. I think
their government needs to be totally flushed
and replaced. So when I went to write about those
people, I said, here's a young couple that are
very much in love with each other. It's easy
to show that. And at the same time, they're repelled
by their government and what they're doing. So
I tried to imagine that type of thing. And a
lot of the reactions were almost automatic. The
lady is the stronger of the two because she's
the one who made the initial decision that we're
leaving. Her husband is faithful, he has his
own reasons for leaving, and he goes along with
that. And some of the stuff, I mean, given that
high type of strong woman, who I think a lot
of us had exposure to, I was able to almost,
it was almost easy to come up with what her reactions
would be to different situations. when there
is a problem with the initial extraction. And
Jerry and his seals are stranded on the beach
along with two people they're supposed to rescue.
And is that a classic, you call this a rescue
reaction or what? I mean, it was almost too easy
to write that scene. But yeah, I really thought
of them as people and as central to the story
as Jerry and his seals. Well, on top of that,
you had her be pregnant. On top of everything
else, you add multiple layers, which is basically
what I'm trying to get at here for our listeners.
Larry's stories are not just straight action
adventure, though there certainly is an awful
lot of that. When you open up a Larry Bond book,
it's... It's an incredible journey. You are pulled
in so many different ways emotionally. I've just
been in awe of how you pull these things together.
Now, you have a website that people can go to
to find out about your other books as well, correct?
That's true. There's Larry -Bon .com and I'm
on Facebook. I update the Facebook more than
I update the LarryBond .bond because I can update
the Facebook myself, of course. But I try and
keep people... Okay, Larry, I'm sorry to cut
you off, but we have to take a little break right
now. This is Dwight Zimmerman talking to vessels
author Larry Bond. We'll take a break and be
right back. This is Dwight Zimmerman of At Ease
from Veterans Radio Network and I have as my
guest Larry Bond and we've been talking about
his upcoming book. Larry, I'd like to talk about
a pivotal group within this story, the Navy SEALs.
I've had the good fortune of meeting a number
of SEALs, interviewing them, and writing accounts
of some of their missions, and I was impressed
at how well you nailed down how they operate,
their personalities. at every level of them pulling
off a mission. You did an awful lot of research
on this. We did. We did. And part of that was
one of the things we wanted to do in this book
was take Jerry Mitchell, who's in the past two
books who's shown to be a very capable and resourceful
submariner, and put him in a situation where
he's a little outside his comfort zone. In other
words, he's not on a submarine. All of a sudden,
he's on land. and involved in a very personal
struggle to stay alive. And this is not something
that most naval officers are trained for. And
the SEALs that he's with are very, I was in the
Navy in the 70s, and I trained, surface warfare
officer school for me was at Coronado, California,
which is where the SEALs trained. And so we would
see these guys during Hell Week, running around
carrying logs and inflatable boats. We basically
thought they were insane. We were glad they were
on our side because their entire regiment seemed
to consist of physical exercise and learning
how to kill things. So that's the attitude of
a lot of the fleet towards these guys. They're
sort of a projectile. We fire at different targets
as needed. And they're incredibly capable guys.
I'm going to plug somebody else's book. If you're
looking to learn about the SEALs, Dick Couch
has what I call the SEAL Trilogy. Dick is a SEAL
who served in Vietnam and he's an amazingly good
writer. He wrote a series called Warrior Elite,
Finishing School, and then Downrange. Those three
books take you through Bud School, which is an
amazingly detailed account of not only Hell Week,
but what's in front of and behind that. and then
Warner Elite, which is the year plus of training
they get after they finish their SEAL training,
and then downrange actually puts them on some
missions. My co -author, Chris Carlson, had the
good fortune to work for SEAL, former SEAL, retired
SEAL, as a civilian. And so we talked and his
name was Ryan McCombie, who's also a Vietnam
SEAL. Ryan, of course, did college results in
all of the SEALs. Ryan told us so much about
SEAL attitudes, SEAL training, SEAL practices.
It's funny, a lot of it doesn't have to do with
combat or with some sort of special techniques.
It's more a matter of thorough preparation and
planning and training. to a degree that most
of us would regard as almost pathological, but
this is what keeps them alive, and it works.
Okay, and they had enough challenges tossed their
way during their escape and evasion efforts.
The Iranian head of security, a shadowy character
that he is, is really a He's a marvelous villain.
I would not like to meet this man. Tell the listeners
more about him. Every good story needs a good
bad guy. Unfortunately, the security services
in Iran as they are right now are legendary for
their ruthlessness and viciousness. Coming up
with a character based on someone who is also
almost taken directly from the newspapers wasn't
that hard. I tried to put some motivation in
him so that the people... I hated when the entire
motivation of the villain consisted of him getting
up in the morning and saying, I think I'll do
evil today. Everybody does things because they
think they've got good reasons to do it. And
he's got his own reasons, screwy as they are.
And he... From his point of view, the book is
almost a detective story as he tries to crack
down these intruders and bring them to what he
thinks is justice. His personality lends itself
to that, I think. Of course, he gets his comeuppance
in the end, which, you know, yeah, we've got
to do that. It's one of the rules. I had a lot
of fun writing him. I had as much fun writing
the villains as I do writing the heroes because...
At some level you have to be able to identify
with the villain as a writer and say, okay, what
is he going to do next? Yeah, this makes sense
for him. So you've got to have some sort of rapport
with your characters. Yes, and the way that he
is taken care of is a quite spectacular finish
to the story. I have to commend you on that one.
You have another book in this series coming out.
You're almost done writing that, is that correct?
Well yeah, the fourth Jerry Mitchell book. I
obviously don't want to talk too much about the
plot, although given the natural progression,
yes, in this book he's going to be the captain
of a submarine now. He's advanced through the
years and through different adventures. I've
got a June 1st deadline to turn that in. And
then it will go through the publishing, editing
process with four or four books. Hopefully it
will come out sometime in 2013. It's amazing
how long it takes to get a book from the shelves,
or on the shelves, from the manuscript form.
And a lot of it has to do with what they call
the buyer's cycle, which, well, you know more
about that than I do. But for the readers, it's
like a six month cycle. If you miss one part
of that cycle, you have to wait another six months
to catch the merry -go -round next time it passes.
It can be a little frustrating sometimes. It's
very frustrating with this anchored plan. We
delivered the manuscript, and all of a sudden,
the news is full of things about Seals. It was
just about a year ago that Osama Bin Laden was
killed, so Seals were all of a sudden a very
topical subject. And we'd already turned in the
manuscript, and I said to my editor, we've got
to get this thing on the street. This is hot
stuff. And he said he'd move heaven and earth
to try and get it out as quick as he could. And
he managed to shift the publication date from
late June to late April. Too much. That's all
he could give me. And then it slipped. So now
it's coming out in mid -May. You're participating
in a charity event on the May 18th pub date.
Tell us about that. Well, it just happens. One
of my good friends down in North Carolina said,
you know, let me organize some sort of publication
party. Authors being people love to have parties.
And if our book's involved and people are talking
about our books, this is a good thing. Her name's
Kathy Fell, and for anybody who's down through
and can get to Sunset Beach, North Carolina,
which is a beautiful little community, they're
going to have a charity event which supports
a charity called Cat Tales. It's a cat adoption
service, and it's a worthy cause in my opinion.
We have a couple rescued cats ourselves. The
idea is Torr Forge on their Just out of the goodness
of their heart, I'm going to donate books, donate
new copies of the book, and people can buy them.
The money will go to Cattails. And then, of course,
I'll be down there with my co -author, Chris
Carlson. We'll both be photographing copies of
the book. We'll have the rest of our back lists
there, too, if anybody wants to buy the other
stuff. We don't want to miss up any buying opportunities
there. No, sir. So I've been talking with Larry
Bond here. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I was just going
to say it's going to be on the Saturday, which
I think is May 19th, technically. I haven't looked
at the calendar lately. I have to double -check
that. We're going to do a couple of events down
in that area. Okay. I've been talking with Larry
Bond about his new book, Exit Plan, which is
an exciting action techno -thriller adventure
that will be out next month, May 18th, May 19th.
I hope that everyone has an opportunity to check
out this book. Certainly, you can go to his website,
Larry -Bond .com and find out more about Larry
and his many books. He's an exciting writer,
a wonderful author of many books, and I'm just
very thrilled that you've been a part of our
program today. Well, it's been a lot of fun being
here. Okay, so Dale, I guess we're nearing the
end of our show. Larry, I just want to thank
you so much for being on the program and I hope
to have you on here again when we're going to
talk about the fourth book in your series. Can
you tell us that title? Or is that still top
secret? I'm sorry, it's just like, I can't do
it. Okay. Thanks so much. Thank you for your
many kind words. Oh, and thank you for being
such a great storyteller. And a warning to everybody,
if you do pick up a Larry Bond book, do it in
the morning and make sure that you're doing it
on a weekend or you're not going to be going
to work the next day because it's going to be
very hard, if not impossible, to put down. Thanks
very much. Have a good day, Dwight. Thank you.
You too. I am here. Hi, there you are, Dale.
I am here. Thanks again. It was a great program.
We've got another one coming up next week. We're
going to be talking with Owen West, that's Bing
West's son, who has written his own novel called
Snake Eaters about his experiences in Iraq in
2005. And so we're excited to have him on the
program. Dwight will be back next month with
another story. And we've got about 10 seconds
to say thank you, Dwight, again. And we'll be
talking to you soon. Yes, thank you, Dale. And
thank you to everyone who is listening today.
You are dismissed. All views and opinions expressed
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