5/3/07

Library features S.C. author, book on World War II hero
By Philip Gibbons

PHILIP GIBBONS/Manning Times Photo

Dr. John Griffin tells the story of fallen Doolittle Raider Lt. Bill Farrow in a presentation and book signing at the Harvin Clarendon County Library last Thursday. Griffin is the author of a biography of Farrow.

“If you don’t have a goal, it’s impossible to get motivated. But once you find it, it’s easy to get fired up.”

So said Dr. John Griffin, a retired college professor and author at a recent Harvin Clarendon County Library program. As of 2007, Griffin has had 10 novels published, and is passionate about the art of writing.

“I discovered that I liked to write when I went into the service and joined the paratroopers,” said Griffin, “I’d write letters home to my family and friends, 30-40 pages long. Once I started, I didn’t want to stop. So I said ‘Now I know what I want to do, and that is to write. I started off writing football books.”

“I was writing when I was in college. I didn’t publish anything but I was writing fiction, short stories.”

Griffin’s latest book is called Lt. Bill Farrow: Doolittle Raider. It is a biography on the life and times on Lieutenant William Farrow, who was a pilot in the Doolittle Raid on Japan during World War II. Farrow bravely participated in the first strike against Japan after the Pearl Harbor attacks. After his plane ran out of gas and went down, he was captured by the Japanese, tortured in a prison camp, and executed by a firing squad.

“I originally wrote a magazine article on Bill Farrow,” Dr. Griffin said, “I did my research at the Historical Society in Darlington, where he is originally from. They have a whole room of material there on him. And I thought, ‘Somebody should write a book on this guy.’ I kept waiting and thinking that and nobody did it so finally I said ‘Why don’t I do it?’ That was when I started gathering material on the book.”

“It’s a full biography. It goes on past his death, really. Three of his crewmen were in prison with him. After he was killed, I picked up with the three crewmen and followed them up until now.”

On Thursday, April 19, Griffin made an appearance at the Harvin Clarendon County Library where he sold and autographed copies of his book. Prior to that, he did a 40-minute presentation in which he lectured on Bill Farrow and narrated a slideshow. It consisted of a chronological account of Bill Farrow’s life, starting from boyhood, going into the Air Force, and his death at the hands of the Japanese. One particular surprise was a story about a farmer discovering Farrow’s driver’s license mysteriously thrown up into a tree, years after he died.

He concluded the evening by showing a scene from the movie Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, then answering questions from the audience.

Doolittle Raider is not the first biography Griffin has written. His previous forays into the genre have included author Thomas Wolfe and Abraham Lincoln.

“The one I came up with before this one was Abraham Lincoln’s Execution. In it, I maintained that Lincoln was not assassinated, but executed upon the orders of the Vice President and the Secretary of War, due to his lenient ideas concerning Reconstruction in the South.”

“I like writing fiction better than nonfiction,” he said, “That way I’m not bound by facts.”

With fifteen books, short stories and magazine articles under his belt, John Griffin is certainly no small time writer. He offers the following advice to those who wish to enhance their own writing skills.

“The only way to get better is to write. It’s like riding a bicycle. The more you do it, the better you’ll get.”