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results may vary. Hello,

1:10

Luke Jones here. We have seen this week

1:12

the D-Day commemorations in Normandy. 80

1:15

years since that incredibly pivotal moment in

1:17

World War II. This weekend, we thought

1:20

we'd bring you a story from back

1:22

when we were called Stories of Our

1:24

Times, not The Story. Manveen spoke to

1:26

Rishi Sharma, a man who made it

1:29

his mission to speak to every single

1:31

living World War II veteran. It's

1:33

a remarkable story. And Manveen speaks to him

1:36

to find out why he did this, why

1:38

he traveled all around the world, often

1:40

sleeping in his car to document these

1:43

veterans' memories. I

1:50

never thought about it. They

1:53

were the enemy. I

1:57

never thought about it until years later. And

2:03

the reason I thought about it, I took

2:06

the life, probably

2:09

12 to 20 men somewhere. These

2:16

guys never had a

2:18

chance to reproduce children,

2:22

and that bothered me. These

2:26

guys were denied that, and

2:30

I've thought of it in that vein.

2:43

It's still within touching

2:46

distance in history. The

2:48

long shadow of the Second World War,

2:51

the biggest and deadliest conflict the

2:54

world has ever known, which

2:56

drew in more than 30 countries and

2:58

killed around 80 million

3:01

people. Still looms

3:03

large over modern life, but

3:05

for a precious few scattered around

3:07

the world, it lives on in

3:10

their memories. And

3:20

then we went to Guam. That's

3:25

a day that I'll

3:27

never forget. William

3:34

Gosh is one of them. We

3:38

went down the ropes, got

3:40

on board the landing craft, and

3:44

there's ships all over the

3:46

place. Battleships, cruisers,

3:49

destroyers, God knows what,

3:51

all over the horizon.

3:55

What an experience. He's

4:02

now 99 and

4:04

stories like his from the battlefields

4:06

in Japan and Guam, a

4:09

tiny island in the western Pacific, could

4:11

easily be lost forever. But

4:27

there's one person who spends day

4:29

after day on a lonely

4:31

mission to preserve every single one

4:34

of these accounts for

4:36

the generations to come. By

4:39

preserving a World War II veteran on

4:41

camera, I know that

4:43

their great-great-great-great grandchildren are not just going to

4:45

get to know their name, but they're also

4:47

going to get to know the way they

4:49

speak, the way they talk, the way they

4:52

laugh, the way they tell their stories, their

4:54

characteristics. The Imperial War Museum

4:56

does that and they have oral histories and

4:58

so do other museums and institutions, but

5:01

no one was doing it systematically as Rishi was doing

5:03

it as far as I can tell. I'm

5:05

trying to get every single combat veteran. I'm

5:10

on a mission to meet and

5:12

interview every single World War II

5:15

veteran of the allied countries. That

5:18

mission has taken 25-year-old Rishi

5:20

Sharma around the world filming

5:22

interviews with World War II

5:25

veterans for his YouTube channel.

5:27

But he knows that for him, it's

5:30

a race against time. Occasionally

5:33

he'd realise that a combat veteran he'd

5:35

been trying to reach had died and he'd be

5:37

so sad about it, he'd felt as if he'd

5:39

failed in some way and that he should have

5:41

got to them. You're

5:44

listening to Stories of Our Times from

5:46

the Times and the Sunday Times. I'm

5:48

Manveen Rana. Today, the

5:51

extraordinary story of one man's

5:53

pursuit to interview every living

5:55

World War II veteran. My

6:10

name is Will Pavea, I'm the New

6:12

York correspondent for The Times. I write

6:15

about East Coast news and I also

6:17

write features and interview people for the

6:19

magazine. And

6:21

Will, you wrote a particularly

6:23

moving article about one

6:26

person you'd come across. Tell us

6:28

a bit about him. How did you first come

6:30

across Rishi Sharma? I

6:35

first saw Rishi in a couple of

6:37

news stories that had come out of California in 2018. One

6:41

of them was a sort of Sunday

6:43

morning breakfast show kind of television interview

6:46

in which we saw this sort of

6:48

very young, this teenager, this Asian kid

6:50

and he was going to visit World War

6:52

II veterans and interviewing them. They're

6:57

real superhero World War II vets out

6:59

there and I want to meet them.

7:02

So in 2014, as

7:04

a junior in high school, Rishi made it

7:06

his mission. I ditched so many days

7:08

of high school to go do an interview. You

7:10

were skipping school to go interview vets? Yeah. And

7:14

he was posting videos featuring his interviews

7:16

on YouTube and what really struck me

7:18

about the interviews was, I mean, not

7:20

only was this kid clearly very interested

7:22

in these veterans, but he was also

7:24

incredibly knowledgeable and he'd be asking sort

7:26

of people who were D-Day veterans,

7:28

sort of about how they managed to get

7:30

through some of the hedges of Normandy and

7:32

what kind of ordinance they're up against and

7:34

just all these very in-depth questions. So he

7:36

was clearly somebody who knew a great deal

7:39

about the subject. And he also had this

7:41

sort of funny kind of rapport with all

7:43

these veterans who seemed to take to him.

7:46

This is an Arasaki

7:48

.31 caliber rifle.

7:52

Have you ever fired it since? No. No,

7:55

I have not fired it. Could

7:58

you hold it up a little higher for a— What was

8:04

this? They look better? Yeah, you

8:07

look like you're in the Wild West. All

8:11

right. I

8:13

interviewed him over the telephone in 2018. He was very

8:15

charismatic. And

8:18

so I first written about him in 2018. And

8:20

a few months ago, I had this other call from

8:22

him. And I was amazed to find that he was

8:24

still doing it. I remember thinking when I first interviewed

8:27

him, well, perhaps he will do this

8:29

for a couple of years, and

8:31

then he'll go to college and start having a normal

8:33

life. But he was still on the road running

8:36

out of money, essentially living out of a rental car.

8:38

And I remember being astonished about

8:40

that. And so I arranged to

8:42

meet him up in Buffalo, in upstate New York,

8:45

where he was interviewing a few veterans. And

8:47

so the first time I met him, I came

8:49

out of Buffalo Airport and I was sitting on

8:51

a bench writing a piece about something else. And

8:54

he showed up in this little car. He

8:57

was thinner than when I remembered seeing

8:59

pictures of him in 2018. Scratchy beard,

9:01

white T-shirt. There

9:03

was a toothpaste tube under the handbrake in his car, and

9:05

lots of stuff in the car, which made me think that

9:08

it clearly was true that he was sort of living in

9:10

the car. And he was also very comfortable in the car.

9:12

I remember him telling me that it was almost like an

9:14

extension of his body by this point, because he spent such

9:16

a lot of time on the road. I mean, what did

9:19

you make of him? Because

9:21

that's quite a remarkable first

9:23

meeting. He almost

9:25

seems a bit too good to be true. And

9:28

so I remember being worried that I'd discovered that

9:30

I'd come all this way and

9:32

that it was really all a sort of fake

9:34

or something, and it's not. He

9:36

was very charismatic. He talked a lot, you

9:39

know, just constantly. For a journalist, it was

9:41

all quite quotable. I mean, it felt like

9:43

very much like an open book. And

9:45

I wondered what all this time on the

9:47

road was doing to him and how he was holding

9:49

up. He was clearly worried about the fact that he

9:51

was running out of money and he wasn't sure what he was going to

9:53

do. meeting

10:01

veterans. Tell us

10:03

a bit about that. What is that like?

10:05

What is his day-to-day life like? The

10:09

first thing we did was we were driving to somewhere in

10:11

the suburbs of Buffalo to interview

10:14

a Navy veteran. The

10:16

stop sign turned right onto Fountains Street. What

10:18

was I saying? Turned right onto Tremont Street.

10:22

It was a beautiful, very

10:24

clear, awesome day and

10:26

we showed up at this house and I remember thinking

10:28

what are they going to make of us? Rishi had

10:30

said to me, oh he's told me that he's going

10:32

to have a friend there in case

10:35

I'm a Japanese spy. So we were going to

10:38

interview a veteran named Louis Grozewski who's

10:40

99 and he'd asked his friend Art

10:42

who is a mechanic who used to

10:44

do all his cars to be there.

10:46

So Art greeted us at the door

10:48

and sort of brought us in to

10:50

Louis's living room where Louis was sitting

10:52

sort of waiting for us

10:55

and so there were two quite striking

10:57

things. One was that as we set

10:59

up, Louis talked about various things

11:02

in his house including the stair lift. He had like

11:04

a chair stair lift and he said how much do

11:06

you think it cost? And Rishi

11:08

said about seven thousand

11:11

and Louis was like that's right

11:13

and Rishi kind of knew all about the stair lift. He just turned

11:15

25 and he was very familiar with stair lifts and all kinds of

11:22

other things about what it's like to be

11:24

99. He said to me at some point he thought

11:26

he'd interviewed more people who were over a hundred than

11:28

anyone else. The

11:32

other striking thing was what Rishi did which was while

11:34

we were setting up he was very charming and he

11:36

introduced himself to Louis and then he also rearranged Louis's

11:39

living room. He moved all the lights around,

11:42

we spent a lot of time covering up the

11:44

curtains because he was worried that there would be

11:46

glare from, it was beside a

11:48

road, his house and Rishi said there was

11:51

glare from passing cars, was tracking across the

11:53

wall and would track across Louis's face and

11:56

he kept sort of saying we want to make you look as good as possible. This

11:58

is going to be how people are going to remember you

12:01

and we want we want you to look as good as

12:03

you possibly can. And

12:08

I remember Art at some point busting in and being

12:10

like, I mean he's going to think he's a movie

12:13

star after this. Did he? Did you see the effect

12:15

it was having on him? Having somebody fussing around him

12:17

like that? Yes, you could and

12:19

it was quite touching for him that he

12:21

had someone taking such trouble to get it

12:23

right. And just before the interview

12:25

began, and I saw Rishi do this several

12:28

times, he knelt at Lewis's feet. And

12:30

he said, listen, sir. And he sort of

12:32

launched into a speech, which is all about

12:34

how many people died in World War Two,

12:36

and how many people were injured around the

12:38

world. And what an important

12:41

historical event it was. And

12:43

he asked Lewis to sort of not leave anything out,

12:45

he wouldn't force him to talk about anything that was

12:47

traumatic, we didn't want to talk about it. But he

12:49

said, if he could try

12:51

and be as clear as possible, and

12:54

try and put us in his shoes, as it were,

12:56

when he was remembering these things, that would be a

12:58

huge help. And so he sort of prepped Lewis for

13:00

the interview in a way. And he reminded me a

13:02

bit of a sort of film director talking to an

13:04

actor before a shot, you know, just sort of saying,

13:06

this is how we're going to do it. And this

13:08

is what I'm going to talk to you about. And

13:10

this is kind of what I need from you. He's

13:12

trying to get sort of the

13:15

best recollections of

13:17

that moment. I mean, Rishi said, you know, it's

13:19

a very important story, and people want to visualize

13:21

what you went through, and they want to understand

13:23

what you went through. And sort of put like

13:25

that, I think Lewis was sort of delighted to

13:27

help. I mean, that is remarkable,

13:30

because I imagine a lot of these veterans, you

13:33

know, go through life with nobody wanting to hear

13:35

their stories necessarily. I

13:37

think that's right. In some cases, of course, we

13:39

all know the stories of people who came back

13:41

from World War Two and didn't want to talk

13:43

about it and never told their children. And in

13:46

my experience, I think in lots of other people's

13:48

experience, it's sort of been much later in life

13:50

for many of them, perhaps when they have grandchildren,

13:52

that they start to talk about it

13:54

more and they're more open about it. And I think

13:56

in Rishi's case, he is almost like the

13:59

grandchild showing up. and getting people to

14:01

talk for the first time. I

14:03

mean, that must be something that's quite

14:06

odd to watch, that this 25-year-old, he

14:08

hasn't been to university, he

14:11

doesn't seem to hang out with people of his

14:13

own age. And the hardships

14:15

that he's going through in order to be able to do

14:17

what he's doing, I mean, just tell us a bit about

14:19

that. What was it like watching him for

14:21

those few days? He doesn't eat very much. He

14:24

sleeps in his car. He's driving around. I mean,

14:26

I sort of tried to feed him myself. And

14:28

he said, no, it's okay. I've eaten this morning.

14:31

No, no, I'm fine. I don't drink anything. It's

14:34

a water. Thank you very

14:36

much. You're welcome. I'll get you some more water. Something

14:39

up around the table there, okay? Great. Thank you. You're

14:42

welcome, mate. I'm really sorry that you're not here. No.

14:44

It was amazing. So how are you surviving, which, how

14:46

are you? Money-wise?

14:48

You do eat something, right? Yeah. You've lost all

14:50

this, how much weight you've saved over 34 pounds?

14:52

Yeah, that's what they said. Yeah, I used

14:54

to be 155, but now I'm like 120. Crazy.

15:00

He actually told me beforehand, he said, listen,

15:03

just so you know, I try not to eat when I'm

15:05

interviewing people because I don't want to have to get up

15:07

and go to the loo. And also, when I'm driving around

15:09

my car, I don't want to have to stop. And so

15:11

he said, you might want to bring some food or eat

15:13

before you, before we meet up. He was worrying about me,

15:15

basically. So yeah, I

15:17

think it's taken a toll on him. And I think

15:19

also in his car, he said to me,

15:21

he doesn't really have anyone his own age to talk to.

15:23

It's had all kinds of surprising effects on him. I

15:26

think also, he gets very

15:28

attached to these men, many

15:31

of whom are at the end of their lives, and who

15:34

die, who pass away. And he'll then

15:36

get phone calls from people saying that

15:38

this guy that you knew and whose

15:40

story you recorded has died. And he'll

15:42

be really upset. And

15:45

what is it like for, you know, watching him

15:47

when, as you say, he doesn't seem to

15:49

have many friends his own age, it feels

15:51

a bit like his life is on pause while

15:53

he does this project. It's been years now. It

15:57

does. And I must admit, it's tricky

16:00

because I don't want him to bankrupt

16:02

himself doing this. And as far

16:05

as I can tell, he was sort of running out of money. Initially,

16:08

he started a GoFundMe

16:10

kind of fundraiser online, which

16:13

raised $120,000. And so he did this was when he first set out.

16:15

And so he suddenly had

16:18

all this money. And so when I

16:21

first spoke to him, he was sort of jetting around

16:23

the country speaking to people, people would say, Oh, please,

16:25

could you come and interview me? And he'd go. And

16:27

so he was in Canada, and then he was in

16:29

LA, and then he was somewhere else. And he was

16:31

like, I'm going to go to Britain, I'm going to

16:33

go to Australia. And he's done all that. He's been

16:35

all over the world finding veterans and speaking to them.

16:38

Even when I got the 120 grand, I mean,

16:40

you're talking to a frugal family guy, I mean, I

16:42

understood that that money might not go forever. So

16:44

I need to stretch it. So

16:46

there are many times when I would, if I have

16:48

a flight, and I get

16:50

there, you know, if my flight's

16:52

at 5pm, and I have an

16:55

interview somewhere the next morning, instead

16:57

of booking a place that night, I'll

16:59

spend the night at the airport. I've done

17:02

many airport stints like that, or you know,

17:04

CB in the car. But gradually,

17:06

the money started to run out that money was supporting him.

17:08

And it's dropped now to about I think he said about

17:10

$300 a month, which

17:12

isn't really enough to keep him going. And when

17:15

I spoke to him, he showed

17:17

me his bank account, he had about $1,100

17:19

in the bank, I spoke to him a few weeks later,

17:21

and he was in Maryland, I must have missed I don't

17:23

know what his situation is now. But yeah,

17:26

it's fair to say he didn't have much longer left

17:28

and he was in a rented car. I did worry

17:30

for him in that respect. What

17:32

did you make of the whole

17:34

project? Of what he's trying to do? I

17:37

mean, I think it's a wonderful project. I think

17:39

I remember when I first spoke with

17:42

him, I was once a local newspaper reporter

17:44

in South London in an area where there

17:46

was, I suppose, like anywhere else,

17:48

there were lots of war veterans, this would be early 2000s, when

17:51

we were coming up on these sort of big anniversaries

17:53

of D day, I remember sort of going out and

17:56

speaking to prisoners of war, and speaking to

17:58

people who'd been in the D day. sort

18:00

of landings and just being amazed that they

18:02

were sitting there. And in some

18:04

cases it felt as if their story had never been

18:06

told before. And I remember thinking, someone

18:08

needs to get on this. Someone needs to, you

18:11

know, and of course the Imperial War Museum does

18:13

that and they have oral histories and so do

18:15

other museums and institutions. But no

18:17

one was doing it as systematically as Rishi was doing it,

18:20

as far as I can tell. I mean, he was trying

18:22

to get every single combat veteran. The

18:28

things that stick with me, like I remember talking to

18:30

one of the veterans we spoke with whose name was

18:32

William Ghosh. His story

18:34

was so incredibly vivid and he

18:36

told it so well. And at

18:39

some point he tapped his head and he said,

18:41

it's all in here. It's all in here. It

18:44

seems like as I say, 80 years, you wouldn't

18:46

believe it, 80 years later. But

18:48

these things are just

18:51

as vivid in my mind as the

18:54

day they happen, as I'm relating them as

18:56

well as I can relate them. My

19:01

memory hasn't changed. He

19:07

was on oxygen and he was 99. And

19:11

I remember thinking, gosh, it is all in there.

19:13

But what happens when he's not around anymore? It's

19:15

gone. And I suppose thanks to Rishi, it's now

19:18

on a YouTube video that you can go and watch. It

19:32

is a remarkable achievement. And

19:34

at this point, if you're anything like me, you're

19:37

probably wondering, what makes him

19:39

do it? What makes

19:41

a young man from California give

19:43

up his 20s, scrimp

19:45

and save, go hungry at times,

19:48

to spend night after night sleeping in

19:51

a car so that he

19:53

can spend all day recording the accounts

19:55

of World War II veterans? What

19:58

makes him do it? I had

20:01

to find out, so I got

20:03

in touch with Rishi. That's

20:06

coming up in just a moment. Visit

20:30

thetimes.co.uk/stories of our

20:32

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month. Slows. Full terms at mintmobile.com. Rishi

22:30

Sharma has now interviewed over 1,700 World

22:33

War II veterans. And

22:40

when we spoke, he was in Minnesota

22:42

to interview some more. But

22:45

I really wanted to know how all of

22:47

this started. I

22:52

grew up in Southern California in a

22:54

middle class family. And ever

22:56

since I was a boy, I've been fascinated

22:58

by the Second World War. You

23:00

know, you could ask these World War II veterans anything

23:03

about the past 120 years, and

23:05

you'll get a first-hand answer as a response.

23:08

These are people who grew up when

23:10

horses were a viable means of transportation.

23:13

And they're likely going to see a human

23:15

on Mars. And so there's just

23:17

such a breadth of experiences

23:20

that you can tap into when it

23:22

comes to this generation. The

23:26

world is changing. Just

23:31

take us back a step. You've

23:33

been doing this now day in, day out for

23:35

years. Take us back

23:37

to the moment it all started. How

23:40

did that happen? What made

23:42

you think, what made you get up one day and think, this is

23:44

what I'm going to do with my life, at

23:46

all the personal costs that come with it? In

23:50

my sophomore year, I remember vividly

23:52

reading a book called Citizen Soldiers

23:55

by Stephen Ambrose. It's a

23:57

compilation of first-hand experiences.

23:59

differences from the front

24:02

lines in Europe, written

24:04

by different World War II veterans. I

24:08

remember reading one chapter about a

24:10

man named Lyle Bouk. He

24:12

was a 21-year-old new

24:15

officer sent to the front lines

24:17

right before the Battle of the

24:19

Bulge. He

24:21

was in charge of an understrength platoon, which is usually

24:24

42, but he has 18 men in his

24:27

command. 18 of them, you

24:29

know, and half of them were killed and

24:31

half of them were captured, including himself. They

24:35

actually helped stop the entire German

24:37

offensive because those 500 Germans

24:40

were delayed taking care of these 18

24:42

soldiers. The

24:44

entire German front lines was

24:46

halted behind them. They

24:49

didn't know it until years after the war,

24:51

but it contributed to the

24:53

fact that there was enough time

24:55

for the Allies to bring in

24:57

reinforcements and stop the entire German

24:59

attack. I was just

25:02

amazed that at 21 years

25:04

old that you could do that. I

25:07

was 16 years old, and

25:09

I had read that excerpt

25:11

in the book, and I just knew I wanted

25:14

this man to know that because

25:16

of what he did, some

25:19

kid in Southern California exists and

25:21

gets to live a full and a free life because

25:24

of the hell that he went through. I

25:26

looked him up, and I found out he was still alive.

25:29

This was California time, maybe 8.30 at night, and

25:32

he was in the Midwest, so it must have

25:34

been close to 11 p.m. For

25:37

some reason, I couldn't wait.

25:39

I just wanted him to know how

25:41

much I appreciate what he did in World

25:44

War II for me, and not just me,

25:46

but millions and millions of other people. I

25:49

called him. In the U.S., it's quite easy

25:51

to find people's information on the Internet. I

25:54

found him on an online phone book, and

25:57

I rang his house. lady

26:00

picks up and I say, is this Lyle

26:02

Booke the war hero? And she

26:04

says, she starts laughing and she says no, but

26:07

if you call in the morning he'll talk

26:09

to you. And so

26:12

that morning I called him and

26:15

he was so friendly, he was

26:17

so happy to hear that a young person,

26:19

you know, had read the book and was

26:22

interested in the war and it struck me

26:24

at that time. I'm holding the book open

26:26

in one hand to his chapter and in

26:29

the other hand I'm holding the phone talking

26:31

to the actual person and he's telling me

26:33

about different lines in the book or how

26:35

they kind of censored

26:37

a part of it to make it

26:39

look cleaner or, you know, he's telling

26:41

me the inside story, the inside scoop

26:44

of what happened. That's amazing.

26:46

But that could have been where

26:48

your adventure stopped. You'd read about

26:50

this man, you'd hero worshiped

26:52

him, you'd managed to get hold of him. What

26:56

makes you extend that

26:58

mission? What makes you go on and want to speak to

27:00

so many more? I

27:02

had such a positive experience interacting with

27:04

Mr. Booke that I decided to call

27:06

a few other veterans from the book.

27:09

Please leave your message. Thank you. I

27:12

hope this reaches you in good health, sir. I'm trying to get

27:15

in touch with the marine. I was

27:17

learning things that you don't read about

27:19

in history books. I was learning the

27:21

real story of what it was like

27:23

to be on the front lines. I

27:25

was learning the intimate personal stories of

27:27

my heroes, what their upbringing was like

27:29

in the Great Depression, the struggles and

27:31

the triumphs that they've had in

27:34

their life. And I feel

27:36

that by connecting to the veterans and

27:39

spending time with them, some

27:41

of their ethos and personality

27:43

and values rub off into

27:47

the ether and I can ingest it and

27:49

it can become part of who I am.

27:52

I was talking to one of my teachers about

27:54

how I wanted to meet these veterans in real

27:56

life, but I had no idea where to go.

27:58

And she... suggested that

28:02

I check out the retirement home down the

28:04

street and I'd never even been

28:06

into a retirement home. And

28:08

I rode my bike there one day after

28:10

school and I walked in the front door

28:13

and I said to the receptionist, I would

28:16

like to meet some World War II heroes,

28:18

please. And she looks

28:20

at me flabbergasted and she had no idea

28:22

what to do. And she says, let

28:25

me have you talk to the director. And

28:28

this man comes out, a

28:30

middle-aged man with a thick mustache. And his

28:32

name's Lloyd. And he says, young man, come

28:35

in here and tell me what you want to

28:37

do. And at that point, I

28:39

just wanted to make some friends. I just wanted to

28:41

hang out with some of my heroes. But

28:44

when he wanted to know

28:46

why I wanted to meet the World War II veterans,

28:48

I had to come up with an excuse. And

28:51

that's really where the whole interviewing concept came from.

28:53

It was the first thing I could think of,

28:57

of why I wanted to hang out with these

28:59

World War II veterans. And I told

29:01

him, I wanted to interview them. And

29:03

he says, well, you're the youngest person

29:06

I've seen walk in these doors in

29:08

a long time. And I'm so happy.

29:11

I'm going to personally introduce you to all the

29:13

World War II veterans we have. And

29:16

so he introduced me to 25 different veterans.

29:19

He went door to door with me,

29:22

told them that I was a young man

29:24

from the local school, wanted to talk to

29:26

them. And they all were so agreeable to

29:29

talking with me. I went

29:31

home that day and I

29:34

had to beg my mom, I even cried,

29:36

to get my first camera from Costco with

29:39

her help financially, of course. And

29:42

after getting a camera, I would go to that

29:45

retirement home every day for the

29:47

next two months interviewing World War

29:49

II veterans. And it was just such a

29:51

neat experience and such a

29:53

positive experience. And I decided

29:56

I had to figure out how

29:59

to do this. full time. And

30:02

the first person you approached, Lyle, was obviously

30:04

delighted. You know, he called up asking if

30:07

you could speak to a war hero. And

30:10

similarly at this residential home, they

30:12

must have been delighted. It sounds like, you know, the idea that

30:14

you were the youngest person who'd gone. I

30:16

imagine for a lot of them, they weren't getting

30:19

that much contact from the outside world and suddenly

30:21

there's somebody who's so

30:23

enthusiastic and so genuinely interested in

30:25

their stories. Has it

30:27

always been so easy though? You know, when

30:30

you find veterans, do they always want to

30:32

talk? Because I imagine for many of them,

30:34

they won't have talked about some of this for years.

30:37

I'm the same age a lot

30:39

of the veterans were when they were in

30:41

combat. I do. A

30:44

lot of reason. Does that make it easier for them to open up to

30:46

you? I think so because they treat me

30:48

like I'm one of the guys. I

30:51

generally enjoyed going

30:53

and spending time with World War

30:55

II veterans just to hang

30:57

out, even if I wasn't interviewing them. And

30:59

many of those veterans who I started out

31:02

interviewing in my local community, I stayed

31:04

in touch with, you know,

31:06

throughout the school year and would visit them. I

31:09

remember one veteran in particular, one of the first ones

31:11

who I interviewed out of state. He

31:13

was in the first infantry division and it

31:15

was in the first wave in North Africa,

31:17

first wave in Sicily, first wave Omaha Beach.

31:20

His outfit was known as, you know, being

31:23

one of the toughest outfits of the war. And

31:26

I remember after interviewing him, he would always call

31:28

me and just say, where

31:31

are you at? That's how he would always start

31:33

off the conversation. Tell

31:36

us about him. So

31:39

I was doing interviews in Indiana and

31:42

I came across an article about

31:44

a World War II veteran

31:47

who was elected alderman of

31:50

his town. An alderman,

31:52

similar city council. And it

31:54

just said he was a Marine. I looked him up

31:56

on the internet. His name was Bill Gosh, similar

31:58

to what I did for Lyle book. on his

32:00

phone number and I called him. Anyways, his daughter

32:02

answers the phone and she

32:04

was very kind of like skeptical. Who are you?

32:07

You know, I verified, you know, who I am

32:09

and you know, she was able to look me

32:11

up on the internet and she handed the phone

32:13

to her dad and Mr. Gosh, you

32:15

know, and I were talking. I said, sir, what

32:18

outfit were you in? He says I was a

32:20

Marine Raider. I was like, oh wow. The

32:23

Marine Raiders are an elite force. And

32:26

we were talking and he was telling him about some

32:28

of the campaigns he was in. And

32:30

I was like, oh my God, this veteran's incredible.

32:33

And so he lives in

32:35

Buffalo and I was in Indiana,

32:37

which is probably the equivalent of

32:40

Bristol to Aberdeen, I

32:42

would think, if my geography is correct.

32:45

I said, I have to meet you, sir. And he

32:47

was very open to it. So I

32:50

drove like over the

32:52

next day and a half and I met

32:54

him and we

32:56

did this interview and it was an incredible

32:58

interview. We

33:04

started running into going up the

33:06

hills and Japanese are starting to

33:08

shoot at us. And

33:13

we moved around, oh, from

33:17

one community to another, a lot

33:20

of race patties. Killed

33:23

one woman. She

33:25

was running across the race patties, it was

33:27

dusk. She would

33:29

run across the race, but she was carrying a rifle. And

33:33

at that point, I didn't

33:37

know if it was a he or a she. Didn't

33:40

make any difference. Bingo.

33:45

Went out the next morning and sure enough, here it is,

33:47

a woman. Japanese.

33:56

Was she in uniform? Kinda.

34:03

By that I say kinda. She

34:05

had a hat on it. I

34:07

still got, I kept her hat and it's around

34:09

here someplace. I

34:12

had the sides come down on it. It

34:15

had fur on it. Thing

34:17

with an anchor on

34:19

the top of it. I thought that's

34:21

pretty nice, I'll keep that. And

34:24

I kept it. It's somewhere

34:28

around here. He

34:31

had never really opened up about

34:33

his war experience, but

34:35

it just took someone who knew about

34:37

his campaigns. It just took someone to

34:39

be in that position and happened to

34:42

have a camera recording his

34:44

interview. It went on for like three hours.

34:46

It was just him and me just having

34:48

this conversation as if the

34:50

camera wasn't there. And I

34:52

ended up putting it on the internet on

34:54

our YouTube channel, Remember World War II. And

34:58

it got like a million, I think it's close to

35:01

like a million and a half now, people that watched

35:03

it. His birthday was coming up

35:05

when I put it up on the channel, which

35:07

was about a month after we did the interview.

35:09

And so I did a call to action for

35:12

our subscribers. I said, hey, if

35:14

you don't mind, please write this hero a thank

35:16

you letter. It will mean the world to him. What

35:19

a lovely thing, completely free, but something

35:21

that will really make an impact. It

35:24

just really meant a lot. That's amazing.

35:26

Yeah. At that

35:28

age to suddenly feel like a hero,

35:30

you are doing remarkable work in honoring

35:33

the sacrifices made by so many of

35:35

these veterans, but you are

35:37

sacrificing quite a lot of your own life to do

35:39

it. I mean, you're 25. This

35:42

is now the mission that takes up

35:44

your days. How much

35:46

is it affecting your own life? That's

35:49

an interesting question because I started

35:52

these interviews at an age when,

35:55

and even today it's still part of my

35:57

formative years. So I don't

35:59

really know what. life is like without

36:02

doing World War II veteran interviews. I

36:05

didn't have the best childhoods growing up. I

36:07

would either be some weird kid

36:10

at college with no friends or

36:12

no girlfriend, or I could

36:14

be doing what I'm doing now. For me, I'm

36:16

living the better life. I don't see

36:19

it as a trade-off. I mean, yeah, I've never

36:21

had a girlfriend. I don't have people my age

36:23

who I hang out with or associate with, but

36:26

I get a meet and I live

36:28

in a car. I mean, I guess I

36:31

am homeless, but for me, all that

36:33

stuff, it's

36:35

hard to complain about having a

36:37

pimple or not

36:40

being cool or not having this many

36:42

Instagram followers or not being

36:44

wealthy when you've met people who've

36:46

had their arms and legs blown off. It's

36:49

just the perspective. That's the most important thing

36:51

I've gained in the interviews

36:54

is perspective. I

36:56

can live in a car, but it's not like anyone's trying to kill me.

36:59

It's not like artillery shows are going

37:01

off, but my ultimate goal is

37:04

really to partner with an organization to get

37:06

all the World War II veterans on camera.

37:09

It's not about Rishi interviewing all the veterans.

37:11

It's about how can we create this movement?

37:13

We have the technology. Everyone has a phone

37:15

with a camera on it. We could literally,

37:17

if the world wanted to, I did the

37:19

math. If we wanted to interview every single

37:22

veteran from all the countries, we could do

37:24

it in two weeks. We have

37:26

the know-how, the technology, the manpower. Literally,

37:29

I have a question guide, a step-by-step

37:31

question guide on our website where there's

37:33

a video tutorial. This

37:36

is too simple not to do. We

37:38

have these incredible veterans still amongst us,

37:41

and we should not wait till there's only one

37:43

left to really shower them

37:46

with attention. So

37:49

we get up on a

37:51

beach. And

38:01

here's what they call a hummock.

38:04

And I'm looking at this hummock, and I can't

38:07

get through it because it's so dense. And

38:13

everybody's running all over. So

38:15

I turned, ran down the

38:18

beach. All

38:20

of a sudden... a

38:25

voice. It

38:30

says, stop. Loud

38:33

and clear in my head. Stop.

38:39

And I stopped. And

38:44

with that, I look, and

38:46

here's bullets. Hitting

38:52

the sand, right, if I

38:54

had taken another step forward,

38:59

I wouldn't be here today. I

39:08

said, thank you, God. And

39:12

I turned and ran up to this hummock. And

39:16

I sat down and I prayed. And

39:29

I turned around, found

39:31

a place through, and

39:33

then I went on with our assault. Taught

39:43

me one thing. There's

39:46

a God. And

39:57

I turned and ran up. You've

40:06

been listening to Stories of Our Times,

40:08

a podcast brought to you thanks to

40:11

the subscribers of The Times and The

40:13

Sunday Times with me, Manvi

40:15

Narana, and my guests, The

40:18

Times New York correspondent Will Pavia, and

40:20

the remarkable chronicler of World War II,

40:23

Rishi Sharma. You can

40:25

find all of Rishi's interviews on his YouTube

40:27

channel. Search Remembering World

40:30

War II with Rishi Sharma.

40:33

And if you want to contribute,

40:35

you can find him on gofundme.com

40:37

or at rememberingww2.org. The

40:41

producer today was Priyanka Dalladia. The

40:43

executive producer is Kate Ford, and

40:45

sound design was by David Crackles.

40:48

If you can, please do leave us a review

40:50

wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks

40:53

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