The publication date for Eight Survived: The Harrowing Story of the U.S.S. Flier and the Only Downed World War II Submariners to Survive and Evade Capture will be October 5, 2010. That's the day by which copies of the book should have been delivered to bookstores.
The publisher is in the midst of selecting which black-and-white photographs will be included in the book. My editor, Keith, is supposed to be making sure we have permission to use each of the pictures. If we don't then that is the last thing I will have to accomplish.
Next to last is getting a portrait of myself to go on the book. At Monica's suggestion, I asked our friend, Gene Smith ( genesmithstudio.com ,) to take the picture. He has agreed.
The G-Man, as we call him, is a superior professional photographer. His work has illustrated the outsides of the boxes of a certain international toymaker, for example. He is also a sailor of long standing. His "rod" is a Pearson 323.
Gene wanted a specific costume for the shoot. "I'd like to get one of you in one of those great Hemmingway/Sub-mariner wool turtlenecks," he wrote in an email.
Honesty requires me to say that vanity compelled me to reject his suggestion. I think they left out a vertebrae or two when they built my body. The result is a short torso which, I think, makes a turtleneck look absurd.
So we're working on the wardrobe. Who knew this would be so difficult? I think the publisher would have been happy if Monica had snapped a quick one with her digital camera.