Just Beneath the Soil

The last voices of World War II reveal buried histories - and the myths that sustain victory.

His great-uncle Lawrence's story lit the taper in Clint Smith's mind - one of many Black Americans who fought valiantly in the war in Europe while being denied the freedoms that they fought to defend. What other stories have been obscured to sustain the mythology of 'the good war'? And at what price?

Following his curiosity across continents, to Europe, Asia and Latin America, Smith seeks out the last witnesses of World War II. Sitting with one of the last surviving Navajo code talkers. Bearing witness to the horrors of Nagasaki. Uncovering a complex web of remembrance in Berlin. Hearing the story of Korea's so-called 'comfort women'. As he receives their intimate, profoundly moving testimony, he builds - with great care - a nuanced, delicately formed picture of communities metabolising the crimes committed by or against them, in a war that has shaped us in ways that have been too often and wilfully overlooked.

A vital objective of remembrance, Smith's lyrical, often tender, account also serves as an act of prevention, passing the baton of knowledge and wisdom to future generations.