Books: "The Last of the Old Breed" By Scott Davis

 

The Last of the Old Breed: An Oral History of the Final Marines from World War II

By Scott Davis

St. Martin's Press; 304 pages; hardcover, $30.00; $14.99 EBook; available today, Tuesday, June 9th

Scott Davis is a historian and journalist who is based in Spokane, Washington, with a history degree from Gonzaga University. His writing has appeared in Naval History, Army Magazine, among many publications. He had interviewed over 500 veterans of World War II, Korea, and Vietnam over the past decade. Davis also runs a popular YouTube channel on the Vietnam War called the Vietnam Experience, and it has amassed over 200,000 subscribers and over 100 million lifetime views.

In the incredibly rich new book, The Last of the Old Breed, Davis tells the story of 130 survivors who fought in World War II who vary in age from 90 to 103 years old. Over 16 million Americans served in the war, and just less than one percent of them are still alive.

Davis tells the story of the war's brutal battles, from the unforgiving jungles of Guadalcanal in 1942 to the blood drenched hills of Okinawa in 1945. The veterans talk about the rigors of combat against a fanatical enemy and the heavy toll it took on their lives after the war. For most of these veterans, it is their first time telling their stories.

Davis said of what brought him to write this book in the press materials that accompanied it, "I started interviewing World War II veterans when I was in high school. Recording their stories felt increasingly important as the veterans began passing away at a rapid rate. When I first started the process in 2015, there were still one million WWII vets living in the United States. Today, there are less than 60,000...The process of locating and interviewing veterans was exciting. It was like an extremely complex scavenger hunt which required me to first locate the person, verify their military record, contact them, convenience them to agree to an interview [no simple task with that generation], and to finally coordinate the interview. The writing process was more laborious. Synchronizing over 130 voices was difficult, especially due to the scarcity of resources. I couldn't get a second perspective on certain events because, in many cases, there was only one survivor left."

This book features a few "lasts" among the veterans chronicled here, from the last living "Carlson's Raider" to the last Marine from the Battle of Midway, the last Salish-speaking Native American WwII veteran, and the last survivor of a tank-on-tank battle with the Japanese. 

The veterans opened up about World War II like never before from their modest homes, retirement facilities, and veteran's hospitals, with the determination to leave an honest account for future generations. For some, it would be their last chance to tell their story.

Davis was touched and impressed by all the veterans he interviewed, but one encounter stood out. "The most interesting experience to me, revolves around an interview I didn't conduct," Davis said. "I was scheduled to speak with a 98-year-old veteran in Utah who had landed on Iwo Jima with his twin brother. As the story went, not long after getting ashore, his twin had been killed by a Japanese mortar shell. The veteran found his twin brother's remains, gathered what he could in a poncho, then personally buried him on Iwo Jima. The day before I was scheduled to speak with the veteran, his daughter called me and canceled the interview. Her dad was having nightmares again. They didn't want him speaking about the war and dredging up old memories. For me, it was a hard reminder that the war never really ended for those who survived."