After over a year of research, interviews, travels and a lot of writing, Park University English Professor Dr. Dennis Okerstrom recently completed his fifth book entitled “Project 9”.
“Project 9” was inspired a by a series of events in World War II and the birth of the air commanders. The book will be available for purchase in March 2014 courtesy of the University of Missouri Press.
According to Okerstrom, “Project 9” is one of the first books being published that discusses secret projects during World War II. He said he believes this book contains very colorful group of characters and an interesting story.
“It’s about a group of Americans and British troops that were flying out of Burma next to India in World War II,” said Okerstrom. “What they did, it was a top secret project which is why it’s called ‘Project 9’ and their job set up was to take British troops and fly them 150 miles into Japanese land in Burma and land in clearance in the jungle by glider at night.”
The book is closely based on true events but written like a fiction to further develop the story.
“I’ve used some of the techniques of fiction in terms of controlling the sequence of events and the pacing of the narrative but everything in it is real,” said Okerstrom. “It is true and based on research, it’s very carefully noted where I got each thing. There are lots and lots of foot notes but I think in many places is going to read like a novel because its pretty exiting stuff that really hasn’t been done before.”
The story focuses on an operation that took place during World War II to take British troops by glider at night to attack the Japanese behind the lines and keep them supplied for the next several months by dropping food, ammunitions and supplies in small planes. The missions also including pick up any wounded and flying them back to hospitals. It was a joint operation between Americans and British.
At the time, there were 523 men in the original group, according to Okerstrom, which 300 of them were pilots.
“Between those pilots were a man named Jackie Coogan he was the most famous child movie star of the 1920s he made a fortune in Hollywood as a child star,” said Okerstrom. “Another one was a guy Buddy Lewis and he was an all-star baseball player and the war came on and he became a pilot. Another one, Phil Coghlan, was already pretty famous in the war but he was more famous for being in the comic strips. And another one of the pilots was Dick Cole and he was famous for having been co-pilot to Jimmy Doolittle on the raid on Tokyo and he was co-pilot of the very first plane to take off the navy carrier.”
According to Okerstrom, all these colorful characters make the story sound like a movie. Many of them had long beards, interesting uniforms and lived in primitive conditions the time they were doing their mission. Their job was to get things done and no one said anything about how they looked or anything else.
During the research process, Okerstrom had the opportunity to meet Dick Cole, one of the air commanders, and his daughter at an airshow they attended.
“(Cole) was at an airshow that I went to and I talked to his daughter and said ‘I’d like to be able to talk to him about a book that I’m writing about the air commanders’ and ‘she said oh my gosh no body ever writes about that’,” he said. “She gave me her card with the telephone number and as it turned out I was invited last year to the last reunion of this group of air commanders.”
The commanders have a reunion every year and Okerstrom had the opportunity to interview the survivors and people who knew them at last year’s event.
“It was amazing,” he said. “They gave me a hat and everything else and I asked them ‘you guys have been going strong why is this your final reunion?’ and they said ‘look around the youngest one of us is 90 and the oldest was 98, we don’t want to hold a reunion and not having everybody to show up’.”
As part of his research, Okerstrom traveled to many places in the United States including Texas, Washington D.C., Alabama, Wisconsin and Abilene, Kan. – where he went to the Eisenhower Presidential Library and found official minutes from the Quebec Conference and information from Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill who, according to Okerstrom, were the ones who set up Project 9 using American air power and British troops.
“I went to find everything that was said and all the things they went through,” said Okerstrom.
Okerstrom said “Project 9” will debut in March as part of the 70th anniversary war series event of the library. Okerstrom was invited as a returning speaker after giving a speech on his fourth book “Bottoms Up”.
During the research and writing process, Okerstrom had the opportunity to spend some time with Cole. During spring break last year he went to Texas and learned about other projects Cole had been involved such as being co-pilot in the Tokyo riders and a hump pilot flying supplies from India into China. Okerstrom is working now on his next book about Dick Cole and has already a contract with the University of Missouri Press.
“(Cole) had never let anybody write about it,” he said. “He’s the only guy in the planet who was Tokyo raider, a hump pilot and a first air commander. That’s the next one, about Dick Cole who has amazing adventures who have never been talked about.”
As Okerstrom pointed to a picture of his spring break in Texas with Cole, he expressed his excitement for his next book. According to Okerstrom, Cole had two different scrapbooks that he kept from pictures and letters he kept during the war.
“He had another scrapbook,” said Okerstrom. “It was all his war time letters that he wrote that he saved and he had those in a scrapbook and his daughter was there, she looked at me with her jaw wide open and said ‘I had no idea, I’ve never seen these letters, I had no idea they existed.’ And I have copies of all those letters.”
Okerstrom’s interest with World War II aviation has led him toward a passion and respect for the Project 9 commanders.
“It’s really a heck of a story,” he said. “It’s a pretty exciting story with some pretty wacky characters on it and it’s all true and I’ve been really honored to been able to meet with some of them.”
