News Release

The April lecture in the Johns Hopkins University Press Neighborhood Author Series features Michael H. Rogers and his new book, Answering Their Country's Call: Marylanders in World War II.

The lecture will take place at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, April 9, in the Peabody Room at the Episcopal Diocesan Center on the corner of North Charles Street and University Parkway. Parking is available.

"Time will not dim the glory of their deeds" was the inscription on Baltimore's recently razed Memorial Stadium, reflecting gratitude toward the 288,000 Maryland men and women who served their country during World War II, especially the 6,454 Marylanders who didn't come home. In Answering Their Country's Call, Rogers presents the stories of 31 Marylanders, told in their own words, each shedding new light on the large role played by a small state in the struggle against tyranny.

Among the ordinary citizens thrust into extraordinary circumstances featured in this book are Ensign Calvin S. George Jr., a Naval Academy graduate who was captured by the Japanese in Manila in 1942 and survived four years of brutal conditions in POW camps and aboard the infamous Japanese "Hell Ships;" Pfc. James A. Kane, a medic in the 92nd Division the famous "Buffalo Division" who lost his right leg trying to reach a wounded soldier in Italy and was awarded the Purple Heart and Bronze Star; Dorothy E. Steinbas Davis, R.N., who served with the 57th Field Hospital in Europe, which treated wounded soldiers during the Battle of the Bulge; and Baltimore Colts legend Art Donovan, who served in the Marines as an anti-aircraft gunner on the carrier San Jacinto before being transferred to a machine gun crew on Okinawa.

Each autobiographical piece describes remarkable feats of courage. Some offer harrowing accounts of combat; others focus on vital duties carried out just behind the front lines. All provide personal views that reveal the mundane, unusual and sometimes bizarre details of life during wartime.

Author Michael H. Rogers attended Rutgers University and lives in Baltimore.

The Neighborhood Author Series is organized by Johns Hopkins University's Office of Community Affairs and the Johns Hopkins University Press, America's oldest continuous university press and the area's leading publisher of books about the history, people, and environment of Maryland and the Chesapeake region.