In November 2024, I recorded a video presentation for the Friends of the World War II Memorial. The topic: At War with the Wind, my book about the U.S. Navy's experience with Japanese kamikazes.
Read my October 2024 article in Naval History magazine about the return of Battleship New Jersey from dry dock overhaul in Philadelphia
The Spring 2024 edition of World War II includes my interview with Alan W. Ostar, a veteran of WWII's hallowed 42nd "Rainbow" Division. Alan served with the Rainbow Division from its 1944 landing in Marseille through its role in the liberation of Dachau. Click on the PDF icon to read the conversation.
On December 20, 2023, Naval History editor Eric Mills interviewed David about Duel in the Deep.
Duel in the Deep has been reviewed in the December 2023 edition of the Midwest Book Review:
"Rescuing from an undeserved obscurity one of the most dramatic and unique submarine battles during World War II, "Duel in the Deep: The Hunters, the Hunted, and a High Seas Fight to the Finish" by military historian David Sears is a simply riveting read and an unreservedly recommended pick for personal, professional, community, and college/university library World War II U.S. Naval History collections and supplemental curriculum studies lists."
Duel in the Deep was reviewed in the the Winter 2023 edition of "World War II Magazine." An excerpt
“Sears is not the first to tell this story…But he tells it well, pulling in detail from a wide range of sources that includes the sailors’ families. The result is a dramatic and heart-rending tale, details of which I’ll leave for the book’s readers.
“It’s not a spoiler to say that the Borie ultimately prevailed, although the destroyer was seriously damaged in the battle, forcing its crew to abandon ship—an act that proved, for the Americans, more deadly than the fight: 27 men were lost, with 130 survivors.
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“Sears concludes by wrapping up threads of the larger story in the remaining few pages. But readers will still be thinking back to the book’s most vivid moments, and the sailors who, longing to make a difference, finally did.”
A column by Mark Bennett in the October 20th edition of the Terre Haute, Indiana Tribune-Star profiles the heroism of Terre Haute's Charles "Hutch" Hutchins, the captain of Borie. Hallowe'en 2023 marks the 80th anniversary of the Duel in the Deep between the crews of Borie and U-405.
Hutch made the fateful decision to ram U-405 at night and in the middle of the frigid Atlantic. The subsequent action earned him a Navy Cross, the U.S. military's second-highest valor award. Before WWII, Hutch was a salesman at Wabash Fibre Box Company. Afterwards, like so many Greatest Generation heroes, Hutch returned without fanfare to his civilian career.
On September 21, 2023 was in Albany, New York as keynote speaker for the annual conference of the Historic Naval Ships Association (HNSA)
On August 9, I participated in a live virtual event hosted by Fort Knox's Barr Library as part of the U.S. Army's Community Recreation Division. I discussed and answered questions about At War With the Wind. The session was recorded and is now available on YouTube.