Dennis,

Thanks very much for taking the time to write. I couldn't ask for a more generous response to the site and my work. I've been intending to reply by e-mail since last night and life just hasn't allowed it. But I wanted at least to acknowledge it here and let you know I've definitely seen it and plan to respond soon.

Clint Hayes

I can't fault your taste in story choice, Ron! I've done everything I can to get it ready for prime time (literally and figuratively, I guess). Now it's just about raising awareness. I'm up to a few hundred visitors a month now, so the real story of the Eager Beavers is starting to get out there more than ever before. I'm hoping the YouTube channel (which if you haven't found it, you can find here), and the TikToks I'm wanting to start doing soon, will start to bring in even more eyes. Hopefully that means attracting just the right pair of producer's eyes!

Thanks for visiting, and especially for taking the time to leave a comment. It's much appreciated.

Clint

Edan,

Thanks for visiting and taking time to comment. It's much appreciated.

Thanks for the link to the Fat Electrician video. I actually was already alerted to it, and in fact had the biggest spike in visitors, by far, that I've ever had because of it. 251 in one day, in fact. I'm happy his video made people interested enough to find out more. As for accuracy, it's hit-and-miss, mostly because it seems to rely mostly on Drury and Clavin's book LUCKY 666, which starts out pretty well with its early bios of Zeamer and Sarnoski, but turns into alternative history once it switches focus to the theater of war. Its account of the crew's history in theater is correct only in the broadest bullet points. That said, its chapter on the crew's final mission together, the 16 June 43 mission to Bougainville/Buka, is mostly fine. Again, though, if it helps drive people here to get the real story, that's okay.

Congrats on taking the plunge into screenwriting and acting. You must be happy both of the strikes are over. On the screenwriting front, I highly suggest you read Bob Saenz's book That's Not the Way It Works. Bob started as an extra back in the late '80s, early '90s, and is now a sought-after working screenwriter. He posts frequently in the Screenwriting group on Facebook, too, really helpful nuts-and-bolts, day-in-the-life posts that are gold for new screenwriters. Can't recommend him enough. I personally decided the working screenwriter life wasn't for me, but I still want this story to be on a screen, so I continue to network to get it in front of those I trust to do the story right. Based on efforts in the works right now, and what I'll be adding to the site over the next several months, I'm feeling better about its chances. We'll see. Sign up for updates!

Tim,

You've been added to the mailing list, and it seems you've read my mind. I'm actually planning to create an e-book and audiobook out of at least the story of the crew on the site. I may also include the biographies of Jay Zeamer and Joseph Sarnoski, once Sarnoski's is finished, to be updated with biographies of the rest of the crew once I finish theirs.

I do have plans for a novel, and in fact have already started it, but finishing it will have to wait until I have the crew biographies done. I want to ensure at least that the whole crew's stories are available on my website, since I have direct control over that. I think you're right that I could get interest from a traditional historical fiction publisher, but I'll have to think seriously about it. My dad, Del Hayes, chose to create his own small press and self-publish after his research revealed that all but elite authors end up being responsible for most of their marketing anyway. That was fifteen years ago; based on everything we've learned since, it's even more the case now. (By the way, if you're interested in the Zeamer story and the SWPA air war in general, you'll likely be interested in Dad's book Ad Astra. You can find it here.)

I do have to thank you for alerting me to the typos. It took me quite by surprise considering not only do I always run my material through a spell check before publishing, but also a couple of excellent proofreaders. It makes me wonder if I made some revisions after doing all that and forgot to do the process again. In any case, I fixed what I found. Embarrassing, but much appreciate the heads-up. I'll add you to my list of proofreaders, if you're interested in the position.

Thanks again for the interest and engagement.

Christine,

Messages like this make the thirty years of work I've put into researching and writing about this crew, revealing the real story, worth it.

I'm with you: I'd rather not read about a person or event if what I'm reading isn't accurate. It is literally a waste of my time. Sometimes, of course, it can't be helped because no one has uncovered the real story yet, and getting to the real story can be an enormous amount of work. I know this first-hand now. But that's not the case here anymore, so it is much harder to excuse.

I do agree with you, too, about taking the same care with history in general and current events. My view of human history is that it's really no different from our personal history: its value is in the lessons we can learn from it for guiding our actions now, which means it can only be as helpful to us as our knowledge of it is complete. Incomplete information yields incomplete knowledge yields incomplete lessons. That's why I always go to primary sources, and try to gather as much information and analysis as I can, even from sources that I might disagree with, or at least challenge my understanding of something, because I know that confirmation bias is a real thing.

If I'd not taken that approach on the story of the Eager Beavers—if I hadn't listened to my inner skeptic or historians who were skeptics of various aspects of the story—I couldn't have uncovered the real story. Ditto the crew members themselves; memory is a fickle thing. The documentary record—not just official records but including what crew members said and wrote at the time—served as a necessary correction to their later recollections. It takes judgement calls on my part, to be sure, and some of it will necessarily remain speculative, but at least it's informed speculation, as much so as I'm capable of at the moment. And the search continues: there remain some records that may yet refine/correct my own understanding of the story. I hope to get at them soon.

But that process can't happen if your priority is a particular narrative rather than completeness. I believe that was the main failing of Lucky 666. As I say in my reviews of the book here on the site and on Amazon, I can't and don't fault the authors for not knowing what I only know from being able to have interviewed the crew members themselves before they passed. But they can be faulted for not using the sources they already had, and aspects of their narrative don't align even with those, which indicates to me either that they were too rushed to do due diligence, or they made a conscious choice to go with a particular narrative rather than the reality. Either case is unfortunate for the reader. Most unfortunate is that without doing his or her own research, the reader can't know this. But that's one of the major reasons my website exists, to serve as a corrective to all the mistaken and mythical accounts.

When it comes to historical figures, I can only be inspired by the reality. Without knowing the person's actual character and achievements, it's hard for me to feel the connection I need to relate and be inspired. So to the degree I feel there's a layer of myth in what I'm reading, I remain ambivalent, and interested only to the extent that either my historical curiosity is piqued or the story is potentially inspiring.

That's when the trustworthiness of the guides, the authors themselves, becomes critical, and why I've gone to great lengths to ensure that my own facts are in order. Some would say too great, but again, the danger is that any mistake establishes some doubt in the reader. It depends, of course, on the importance of a fact to the overall conception you've constructed of your subject, but the difference between a mistake being trivial or significant is its context, is how much is built on it. An event happening in January rather than March might change nothing, or it might change an entire narrative. (That sort of thing happens more than once in Lucky 666.)

It really is all about trust. It truly is unfortunate how fractured that's become in society at large when it comes to current events, and the presentation of history both in education and popularly, depending on how much it touches current events. One bright spot, I think, is that when it comes to history that isn't perceived to connect to politics—something like this—I do believe there is a growing desire and appreciation for accuracy and authenticity. I think that's carrying over more into film and TV adaptations, too. It's easier for people to find out when a screen story gets something wrong, and I'm seeing more pushback against ones that do. I think that's only a good thing. And I even see positive signs that that's carrying over into general news coverage, too, with nonpartisan news sources and opinion site gaining popularity. Hopefully those trends are lasting and self-fulfilling.

Thanks again for taking the time to leave such a kind and thoughtful comment.

Clint Hayes

P.S. You might be interested in my new foray into applying the above principles to examining current events. It's going to be a website soon, but for the moment it's a FB page. You can find it here: Walking the Premises

Thanks so much. There were so many who fought just as bravely beside them and whose names will never be known, but at least in bringing this story to light, the more the public will know about their particular corner of the war. It's one that's never been appreciated.