On Wednesday, October 19th at 5:30 pm, Blue Bicycle Books will welcome journalist Jack Torry in conversation with historian James Scott on Torry's newest work of military history, The Last One Out: Yates McDaniel, World War II's Most Daring Reporter. The event is free to attend.
Torry was the Washington bureau chief for the Columbus Dispatch and Dayton Daily News. Prior to joining the Dispatch in 2000, he was a Washington correspondent for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Toledo Blade covering Congress, the Supreme Court, and Ohio politics.
A nationally respected expert on the Ohio political scene, Torry was a frequent guest on CNN and Meet the Press Daily with Chuck Todd.
About the Book
When Yates McDaniel died in Florida in 1983, few outside his family paid much attention. The only hint of his fame came in a brief obituary buried on the inside pages of the New York Times. The obit suggested bravery and a past far more exciting than almost anyone knew. Even those who worked alongside him in the 1960s at the Associated Press were startled to learn what McDaniel had been, what he had done when he was a young man and the world was at war.
Yet, this remarkable reporter covered more of the Asian war than anyone else—from the savage Japanese assault on Nanking in 1937 to the fall of Singapore in 1942 to landing with US Marines on New Britain in 1943. He took risks no other reporter ever accepted, and colleagues joked that Japanese bombers followed him wherever he went.
“The Last One Out,” is Torry's third book. His other books are “Endless Summers, The Fall and Rise of the Cleveland Indians,” published in 1995, and “Henderson's Light – Drinking, Driving and a Deadly Encounter” in 2009.
