Hello, and thank you for listening to The History of World War II podcast, Episode

299. Interview with Michelle Parade about his book Last Mission to Tokyo, the extraordinary

story of the Do Little Raiders and their final fight for justice.

Michelle Parade is a leading human rights lawyer and national security law scholar. He has

worked on war crimes cases around the globe, including for the Department of Defense on

the Military Commission's in Guantanamo Bay. He is a lecturer at Columbia Law School

and a fellow at the Center of National Security. Mr. Parade, thank you very much for being

with us today.

Thank you for having me on.

Absolutely. So first of all, congratulations on the story that I did not know that was

well told. It has elements of World War II, a legal thriller, revenge, cultural differences,

what I'm, that's something I'm always fascinated about. And it raises serious questions about

how countries should treat for combatants. And I just have to ask, how did you first learn

about the Do Little Raider and how did this book come about for you?

Sure, well, the Do Little Raider goes back to my childhood going to air shows and this

is dates me back to the 1980s. I was so much more interested to be fervently frank in

the F-14 Tomkats because Tom Gunn was out and that's where my interest lay. But I remember

actually seeing what must have been an old B-25, probably not a B-25B, but a B-25. And

someone told me that that was the first plane that ever attacked Japan during World War

II and I was a little boy at the time. But that certainly stuck with me. I remember this

big fat glass nose plane. And so the Do Little Raider is always stuck in my mind. It's just

a, you know, an epic moment in World War II history. But the finding of the case actually,

...