I was honored to be a guest in the latest episode (Episode 12) of Carl White’s Life in the Carolinas podcast.

Carl White is an Emmy-nominated and award-winning author, syndicated columnist and TV show host based in North Carolina. His podcast, which shares some entertaining and fascinating stories about people and places from across the Carolinas, is available on iTunes, Google Play, Sticher, Spotify, and also the Life in the Carolinas website.

I enjoyed my conversation with Carl, and the chance to talk more about my new book, The Lost Soldier. 

Here's a direct link to the website podcast. Enjoy!

Over the last several days, American flags have waved at half-staff across our country.

On December 7, it was in memory of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which took place seventy-seven years ago.
 
American flags also stood at half-mast in memory of World War II veteran and President George H.W. Bush, who died on November 30.
 
Which sparked memories. As a youngster, I lived two doors down from a Pearl Harbor survivor. That fateful Sunday morning, my neighbor stood watch on the USS Pennsylvania, and thus had a ringside seat for the attack. From his perch in the ship's crow’s nest, he could easily see enemy planes buzzing Battleship Row a short distance across the harbor.

In the 1970s, with my neighbor's help, I completed my maiden historical project during elementary school: I wrote a paper about Pearl Harbor, and at my request my gentle neighbor came to our class to share his experiences. I've never forgotten it, or him.
 
The passing of President Bush further reminded me how veterans of World War II once surrounded all of us. My elementary school principal fought on Iwo Jima. A fellow church member piloted a landing craft to the Normandy beaches on D-Day. Another flew bombers over occupied Europe. Yet another man I knew rode in a tank destroyer across Europe. I'm sure there were more such veterans and I just never knew it.
 
Those men and women set examples of how to live and serve that I try to follow every day.

​Remembering Pete Lynn. 74 years ago today, November 2, Pete was killed in action in the Huertgen Forest while serving with Company B, 112th Infantry Regiment, 28th Infantry Division. Here’s a brief excerpt from my book, The Lost Soldier, about that terrible day:
 
A light rain started falling in in the early morning darkness of November 2, 1944. Like an amanuensis, a soupy mist settled on trees, buildings, and foxholes. The dampness made it feel colder than it actually was, though the temperature was already near freezing. “It was pretty miserable outside,” a German landser recalled.

Gradually it grew light enough to see, but the sun stayed veiled behind clouds the color of dirty cotton. Soldiers stirred. Those selected to attack first rose first. Other companies, like Pete’s Company B and Company K, would not jump off until later so it was 7:30 a.m. before these men shimmied groggily out of their sleeping bags. After eating a hot breakfast, the soldiers packed their belongings. 

Col. Peterson woke early in his Germeter attic. One of his first tasks was to establish a sandbagged observation post for assistant division commander Davis. “I was to meet him at a specified point west of Germeter at a specified time on the morning of the attack to lead him to his CP,” Peterson later wrote. Dutifully, Peterson went to the appointed spot. When Davis did not appear, Peterson “deemed it necessary to get on with problems coincident with the attack.” It was the right call, but Davis later chewed Peterson out for missing their rendezvous. It was an inauspicious start to the operation.

American guns shattered the morning stillness at 8:00 a.m. For the next hour, the massed artillery of the V and VII Corps fired four thousand preparatory rounds while the 28th Infantry Division loosed 7,313 of its own shells toward known and suspected enemy positions. Cota described it as a “fierce concentration of fire” that increased in volume, as the deafening artillery shifted to nearer targets at 8:45 a.m. From the woods west of Germeter the 112th’s heavy guns — from the 707th Tank Battalion’s Assault Gun Platoon, Company B, 630th Tank Destroyer Battalion, the 112th’s Antitank Company, and Company B, 86th Chemical Mortar Battalion — added their steel voices. Lt. Gunther Schmidt, a member of the 272nd Volksgrenadier Division, endured the bombardment from a vantage point near Schmidt. “There was a lot of confusion in the street, horses reared; we heard screams from the men that were hit,” he wrote.

Col. Peterson and his artillery officers watched the bombardment from his headquarters attic. As of this day, his regiment contained 3,239 soldiers, thanks to the arrival of replacements; in the street and among the houses below, the men of his 2nd battalion waited nervously. This was the line of departure. At 8:45 a.m., tanks from the 707th Tank Battalion rolled up behind the soldiers and idled their engines. The eastward view from the attic and street was normally good: open fields, marked by shell craters and the occasional fence, stretched between Germeter and Vossenack. Distant ridges framed the scene, but the shelling obstructed the view. “Schmidt, in the valley ahead, was hardly visible for the smoke of its burning houses and the thick white dust that lingered over each air-blast and shell-burst,” wrote New York Times reporter Harold Denny. “What one could see at Schmidt was only broken walls and naked chimneys and in the foreground the hulks of two burned-out German tanks.” Looking left, toward Huertgen, Denny saw more “tall chimneys, about all that is left of towns and other hamlets.”

At 9:00 a.m., the attack began.....

Authors of nonfiction books will tell you that the research never really ends. The first and second editions of my book Stuart's Tarheels were published in 1996 and 2011 respectively, but just last week I came across new information that I wish I had at my disposal then. 

The Diary of Charles Campbell, which can be found in the Charles Campbell Papers, in the Special Collections Research Center at the College of William and Mary's Swem Library (Mss.65C17), contains the following account of the 1st North Carolina Cavalry's arrival in Petersburg on Friday, October 18, 1861:

"This morning at 8 o’clock saw Col. Ransom’s regt. of cavalry march through town on their way to Richmond. Some officers in front: then the companies & last the wagons 25 in number. The uniform is gray: the horses not large: some of the men had no swords: part of them had carbines slung across their shoulders: at the rear of each company several negroes. A good many horses are led: at the rear of the regt. Were 38 negroes mounted on horseback: one had a sword at his side: last came the wagons driven by white men – mostly 4 horse teams some 2 horse: the wagons contained tents, camp equipage & baggage. The regt had small flags red & blue. It was a fine spectacle – a stream of cavalry flowing along. The whole line was about a mile & occupied 20 minutes in passing.”

This account does not entirely agree with research I unearthed for Stuart's Tarheels, but its description of a cavalry regiment on the march is fascinating.

Indeed, the research never ends. I wonder what else is out there?

My thanks to the staff of the Swem Library for their assistance.

Two days after the Battle of Fredericksburg, an officer stopped to talk with some of the men who had defended the famous stone wall and bloodily repulsed the Federal army. The officer was wearing an overcoat that concealed his rank, so some infantrymen invited him to join them. While sitting around a campfire, “a country lad, a farmer boy at home,” described what it had been like to stand against the Federal attack. “I have heard men say that they were spillin for a fight, but I never did spile for a fight. Stranger, I’ve been in every fight with my rigiment, but I never did likes fighting. But when we was killing them Yankees so party behind that are wall and they wasn’t hitting us, I was rale sorry to see ‘em run. And I tell you ... that was the only time I ever did likes fighting.”

Today’s the day: my new book, The Lost Soldier, is now available wherever you buy books!

Follow Pete and Ruth Lynn (pictured here with their first daughter) on their World War II ordeal, from the home front to the Huertgen Forest. It’s a story you won’t forget.

Check the upcoming tab for events where you can hear more about The Lost Soldier.

Advance copies of The Lost Soldier have now arrived! My publisher, Stackpole Books, has done an excellent job with the design and publishing process. The book will be formally released in August. Look for it online or at a book store near you!