Dan Snow's History Hit - 9/11: The Legacy

Episode Date: September 12, 2021

The tragic events of 9/11 left thousands dead and injured and the impact of that loss is still being felt twenty years later by the families. It was also a day of extraordinary escapes as thousands more fled the twin towers after the planes hit. In this podcast, we both remember those people who died and also hear an extraordinary story of survival. Dan is first joined by Jonathan Egan who lost his father, Michael, and aunt, Christine, during the attacks on 9/11. Whilst Jonathan is a New Yorker his father and aunt were from Hull, England. Michael and Christine were on the 100th floor of the South Tower when the plane struck and as his aunt attempted to escape his father made one last phone call home to say goodbye to his family. Jonathan tells Dan about his memories of that terrible day, how he dealt with his loss and the impact it has had on him and his family.Secondly, in an extract from our sibling podcast, Warfare Joe Dittmar shares with James his story of surviving 9/11. On the morning of 11 September 2001, he was in a meeting on the 105th floor of the South Tower of the World Trade Center when the plane struck. He was one of the only people to escape the tower from above the point of impact after locating the only remaining intact stairwell. Listen to the full interview with Joe here.

Hi everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History. 20 years ago this weekend, out of a beautiful blue sky, the 9-11 attacks changed our world. 2,997 people were killed and 19 Al-Qaeda terrorists of course, add on to that bringing the number nearly to 3,000. It was a day none of us will ever forget. We all remember where we were that day. I'd just come off a plane. I'd just landed flying from the US. I'd just landed in Heathrow Airport in the UK. I'd noticed the night before in LAX, Los Angeles Airport, huge levels of security, armed men, sniffer dogs. I thought something very odd was going on. And I landed in Heathrow, rang home, tell mum and dad I'd be back to see them soon after some months away, being a student, a parapet student. And they told me the first

tower had been hit. Like so many of you listening, I had friends, I had family members in and around those buildings. My cousin Alex, my best friend, was a block away. We lost contact with him that day. Phone lines went down and all we saw was Lower Manhattan shrouded in a giant pool of smoke and debris. We didn't know the extent of the damage and we didn't know whether he would be okay. Millions of us, I think, waited for those phone calls, those text messages to arrive and bring us the news we were so desperate to hear. For many families, those messages never arrived. For thousands and thousands of families, they have spent the intervening time mourning the loss of sons, daughters, brothers, wives, husbands, and parents. In this podcast,

I'm very lucky to talk to Jonathan Egan. He's a family member. He lost his father and his aunt in 9-11 attacks. He's a New Yorker, but his dad and aunt were both English. And he's got a harrowing story of his father being able to ring home, say goodbye to his mum, say goodbye to the rest of the family before the tower collapsed and took him and his colleagues with it. But you're also going to hear from another interview conducted by the History Hit team. This time, James Rogers on the Warfare podcast, our sibling podcast, talked to a man called Joe Dittmar. He was a father of four. He was at the top of the South Tower on the morning of 9-11. And he is one of the few people that managed to escape from above the aircraft impact. A truly harrowing story

of how he found an intact stairwell, the last intact stairwell, and managed to make it through a nightmare to the ground below. Two different but truly remarkable stories of 9-11 for you on this anniversary. It's an anniversary that seemed to be a turning point in my life. I'd just finished university, I was 21, 22 years old, setting out on my career. So in a way, it was a break point between my childhood, my student years, and adulthood. So it's a little bit of a personal anniversary for me, and I'm sure many of you as well. Without more ado, folks, let's hear from Jonathan Egan first. Without more ado, folks, let's hear from Jonathan Egan first.

Jonathan, thank you very much for coming on the podcast. It's good to be here with you. How old were you 20 years ago this month? So I was 18 years old when 9-11 happened. It was my first week of university. And where were you? I was in Los Angeles. So I decided to go to California. I'd graduated from high school in Connecticut and all my friends were going northeast schools and coming from an international family and moving around a lot growing up. I

decided that, well, I can go off to college. I'm going to California. And so you were away from home, I guess, for the first time. Moving out for the first time, I was probably six days away from home for the first time on September 11th. And it was obviously a crazy and unfathomable day in so many ways. And I'll tell you a little bit about it. So I was at university. I was sleeping in, as some college kids do, getting settled into school. And one of my roommates came up to my room and said, hey, John, the resident director's here to see you. Okay, well, I must be in trouble. Well, I just got here. How could I be in trouble? What's going on? And they're

like, I don't know, but she seems pretty serious and she wants to talk to you. So I said, all right. So I went down and met the resident director at the door and she said, you know, can you come with me? Come to my house. We have to speak with you. I said, well, what seems to be the problem? What's happening? And she had this very serious, intense look on her face. I knew there was something wrong. And at that point, I hadn't done anything wrong yet. So I couldn't figure it out. At that moment, a couple of my other roommates were in the living room. And they said, hey, John, look at this. And they go, your city's on the TV.

And so I turned around and I saw the TV. I saw the replay of the towers going down because California is three hours behind. So I was asleep when it happened and I looked at the resident director and I knew right there that life was going to be different forever and the world would change forever and to be honest the first thought that came to my mind was my father constantly preaching Murphy's Law to me and And I was like, holy shit, he was right. He was right. And the resident director took me to her home.

I was basically in a state of shock at that point, and probably for a little while. I got to her house at first, one of my uncles in Canada, one of my mother's brothers was on the phone. And, you know, he was just all broken up, completely bawling on the phone. My mother's side's Italian the phone and he was just all broken up, completely bawling on the phone. My mother's side's Italian, so it was super emotional.

Then shortly after, my mother called and I got on the phone with her and my mom just told me, she said, you know, Johnny's gone. And I said, well, how do you know? Like how do we know he's gone? He called me. He was on the phone. I was on the phone with him when the tower went down. So we knew my father was 103 floors up when the tower collapsed, which was a blessing in its own way because we at least had that peace of mind. So many people had no idea what had

happened to their loved ones. And my aunt was visiting that day as well. So we still weren't sure what had happened to her. But my dad had told my mom that my aunt Christine, who was visiting that day as well. So we still weren't sure what had happened to her. But my dad had told my mom that my aunt Christine, who was visiting my dad, he had gotten her into an elevator not too long beforehand. But for a while, I was thanking God often that my mom did get that call. She was able to say goodbye. We knew that, you know, he probably went pretty quickly. And I knew that I didn't have to, you know, run back to New York and start kind of calling through the rubble to try and find him and was able to just try to get back and consult my family. Tell me about your dad. What was his job and where was his office?

My dad was a professional liability insurance broker. He was managing director at Aon. He was one of the guys heading up their professional services group. And his office, I believe his office was the 101st floor of the South Tower. And they had made it up a couple floors above. They were actually trying to get to the roof to get picked up by helicopters. But the roof doors were sealed. So they weren't able to get up there. And, you know, he was a proud Englishman, born in Hull,

raised by two World War II vets, very humble beginnings. My dad didn't have a bathroom inside of his house. He had an outhouse for probably most of his adolescence, and he worked very hard to give me a very, very different upbringing. And by extraordinary coincidence, your aunt was visiting him in the office. He took his sister up to see the office that morning. Yeah, it was his older sister, Christine. So it was my mother and father's wedding anniversary coming up. And Christine was coming to take care of my younger brother. My younger brother is just a couple of years younger than me,

but he has Down syndrome. So needs someone to watch over him while they're away. And just went up coincidentally, our first time visiting the World Trade Center and went up to see the view and just crazy bad timing. And that they had done that. And she was up there and she was just an absolutely wonderful person. Christine was a PhD in anthropology and she had moved to Canada, to Alberta.

And she donated, volunteered a significant portion of her time in her adult life to doing nurse care for the Inuits in the Northwestern territories. And that phone call to your mum, that's an extraordinary detail. Did he know that there'd be no way down? He knew. I mean, look, they were on the phone right as it was collapsing. So my mum heard the screams and it was very, very hot up there. And he was calling to say goodbye. And it seemed like it was pretty inevitable.

And there's not much conversation besides telling her that he loved her and kiss the kids and just saying goodbye. And it wasn't a long conversation. And it was the second tower to get hit, but the first to go down. So I don't know the timeline exactly, but it happened pretty quickly. Did you go back to university? What was the impact on your life? It took me a while to get back to New York in general, just because flights had been grounded. I remember the family members were allowed on planes first to get back to their

home, their families, and I would jump on a flight, it would go up in the air, and then something would ground it again. So I'd go up in the air, I'd come down and then up in Salt Lake City. And then I'd be there for 12 hours. And then I'd get on another flight, and I'd end up in the air, and then I'd be grounded and be in Vegas for another six, eight hours. And so I think it took three or four flights for me to get back. It's a bit of a haze at this point, but I made it back to New York, helped mom with the arrangements, spent time with some family that came and some friends to mourn. some friends to mourn. And there was no body, so there was no funeral. But we did have a nice send-off gathering at a pub in New York City. And shortly after, I went back to school. I didn't know what was going on. I didn't know what our situation was going to be. And I just knew that

I had to march on. I had to get back to work. It's my first year of university and I had to get university done and I wasn't going to let anything stop me from doing that. And so it was amazing how much it did motivate me to work hard and do what I need to do to make my father proud, to help my family and do the right thing and probably used a lot of the working hard at school as a way to distract myself from the chaos that was going on in the world the chaos that was going on in my home New York City and with everybody it was a tough time for and I was in Los Angeles too right so California didn't have the same sentiment in the air as the Northeast. I mean, you could see the clouds from Connecticut, from New Jersey, and there was a very somber

feeling across the Northeast in the world. And in certainly in parts of California, certain people, but they didn't feel it like it was felt here in New York. So it was almost fortunate that I had chosen to go to California for school and be kind of out of the heart of the aftermath. Speaking of aftermath, did you want to? Did you go to the site? Did you look at the wreckage? Yeah, I went back. That was one of the first things I did.

So, I mean, I was the closest DNA match to both my father and my aunt. And we were hopeful to find pieces of both of them eventually my parts of my aunt were found I think that was about a year later though but I was there and it was a complete war zone doing the DNA tests and one of these little kind of refrigerator trailers and it was a sight and a smell that I don't wish upon anyone to ever have to see and something I'll never forget. What's the difference do you think between losing a parent or a loved one and then losing them the most public the most infamous most publicized event in human history pictures sent all around the globe but do people feel

that they somehow are part of your story like i've you know if you said oh my dad was killed in a car crash in phoenix arizona i'd be like okay instead i'm like oh i felt i was there during your trauma is that a weird thing you know it's a really interesting question it's something i've discussed with a lot of people over the years, especially people that, you know, lost a parent to cancer or a car accident or whatever it might be. And I think there's pros and cons to it, right? I think that there was maybe a benefit to feeling so many people grieving with me and really maybe understanding what happened and the tragedy behind it. But at the same time, too, it's something that people that don't know that my father died in the World Trade Center and people would have opinions on what happened, why it happened, politics, military war. And so you're constantly dealing with those

comments and you're constantly dealing with, obviously, the publicity behind it, right? You're seeing that replay of your dad's office going down for what seemed like forever, day after day after day, sometimes, you know, 30 times a day. And I think that maybe that forced me to process things a little bit quicker and to deal with the reality of the situation because it's tough to get your head around, you know, it's tough to really wrap your head around the magnitude and the idea of that that two planes hit two largest buildings in New York and took them down and that's the office you grew up going to you know visit your father at and that's how it all happened and then now 20 years later right there's all this anniversary memorials around it all.

And so this is something that I don't know if deal with is the take time to help families affected by it and work with the military and that has been involved with the effort since then and it's certainly a lot I think the involvement and when you see you're helping other people you know I was 18 there's one organization Tuesday's Children that I'm involved with that is working with kids that lost family in 9-11. And some of them, you know, they're one years old right now, right? So I've seen a whole almost generation of kids of different ages going through this. And when I'm able to kind of connect with some of those younger ones that didn't really get to know their father like I did, or just benefit from hearing my experiences and how I've dealt with it. It's been incredibly therapeutic. And I'll quote my dad's favorite

song. It's great to take a sad song and make it better. What effect did his loss and that of your aunt, what effect did it have on your family? I mean, it's never ending, right? My mother's never remarried. She hasn't dated. I have a younger brother with Down syndrome who remembers his father very well and misses him and has internalized that pain and has slowly opened up over the years. But it's tough. It's really tough. I think it's made us stronger in a lot of ways too, as a family, the three of us. But I know uncles, aunts, cousins. My dad had a very positive effect on a lot of people in our family and outside of our family. And still some people just don't want to talk about it. They certainly don't want to be around downtown during 9-11.

People deal with it their own ways. And it's something that you never get over. And just from my perspective, as soon as you kind of think you've turned a corner and you're OK, obviously you're still sad. I still miss my father. But there's certain milestones in life that happen. And that's when things kind of kick in again. The birth of my son just a couple months ago was one of them.

Now I've become a father for the first time. And that brings just an absolute windfall of emotions and thoughts of fatherhood and what my dad went through to create a life for our family and to take care of me and you know I think about myself as a rambunctious teenager and him thinking oh wow I've got this Americanized kid who's completely wild and everything starts to come through a different lens and you know and I felt these things through graduation and first jobs. I entered into the same industry my dad did probably about seven years ago. And that brought up a lot of emotions. But fatherhood has really put a lot into perspective. Well, I bet it has.

And congratulations on becoming a dad. Thank you very much indeed on this anniversary for sharing your experiences. It can't be easy. And we're very, very grateful. Dan, I appreciate you. I appreciate the interest. And it's good to speak with England. As I told you, he was a very proud Englishman.

And I look forward to being there on the 20th anniversary. Yep. We'll see you there, man. Thanks, Dan. You're listening to Dan Snow's History Hit. That was Jonathan Egan talking about the loss of his father and aunt on 9-11. Next, we're going to hear from another person caught up in the drama that day, but even more immediately so.

He's Joe Dittmar. He was a father of four who managed to escape by pure luck down the last remaining intact stairwell. He managed to escape from the South Tower after the plane had hit below where he was working that day. It's a crazy story. More after this. Land a Viking longship on island shores, scramble over the dunes of ancient Egypt, and avoid the Poisoner's Cup in Renaissance

Florence. Each week on Echoes of History, we uncover the epic stories that inspire Assassin's Creed. We're stepping into feudal Japan in our special series, Chasing Shadows, where samurai warlords and shinobi spies teach us the tactics and skills needed not only to survive, but to conquer. Whether you're preparing for Assassin's Creed Shadows or fascinated by history and great stories, listen to Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hits. There are new episodes every week. Welcome back, folks. Let's listen now to've got four walls, no windows, one door.

54 people attending this meeting, including Mary. And the meeting was supposed to start at 8.30 a.m. I've been in the industry 43 years. Never start on time in the insurance industry. It wasn't any different that day. 8.30 kind of came and went. It's about 8.46, and we notice an electronic flicker of the lights. That's it. We couldn't see anything. We didn't hear anything. We didn't feel anything. Just this flicker of the lights.

Almost immediately, almost immediately, a gentleman from Aon Corporation, a gentleman by the name of Rick Blood, he came into the room. He said, hey, there's been an explosion in the North Tower. We got to evacuate. Fifty-four intelligent human beings all in the same room, all at the same time. We all did the same thing to Rick. We said, Rick, this is New York. Come on. Stuff is always happening here. We'll be fine. Let us have our meeting. He looked at us and shook his head a little bit. He said, no, you don't understand. I'm one of those volunteer guys, volunteer fire marshal. I have to empty out 105, 104, 103 so that I can leave. And believe me, I want to leave. So let's go. Let's get out. I know he got everybody, all 54 people out of the room that day because I was the

last guy out. Took us over to the closest fire stairwell and that's where he proceeded to tell us that we were going to walk down 105 flights of steps. Oh yeah, what a bunch of happy campers. This was back in the day when we were talking about this before, where you were the man. If you had your flip phone and you had a holster on your belt, you were all that. OK, and that's what everybody did. They reached to their right or their left company assigned cell phones and pulled them out, flipped them up. And we were going to call somebody to moan and groan about the fact that we couldn't have our meeting. Something interesting happened. No service. All the phones flashing on the screen, no service. The main cell tower for all of southern Manhattan was on top of

the North Tower, the first building to be struck. So the cell service, which at that point was earlier in the stage of cellular technology was gone and if listeners are thinking well great if you really need to talk to somebody get on a landline that's an excellent idea as well except everybody in New York are now on those landlines trying to contact their mom dad sister brother aunt uncle spouse whomever to make sure they're okay let them know where they are and everybody in the, and that's no stretch in the world that knows somebody in New York City, they're now calling in on those landlines, trying to find out the same things. Is everybody okay? So cell service is gone. The landlines couldn't handle the communication

traffic. I never considered that before Joe I didn't realize that the cell tower was on the top of World Trade Center tower one and you're absolutely right as soon as everyone starts to ring in that's when all communication gets blocked up and you're essentially no matter what level of technology you have and it sounds like you know you did have a better cell phone than me I'm'm going to say it, Joe, that flip phone razor was not in my possession for another five years. It was a hand me down from my dad and I loved it, but it was too high tech for me at that point in time. But you're right. You're essentially, well, you're cut off from the outside world at this point. It's you, 54 of you in a meeting now having to make the choice to make your way down those 100 plus floors of Tower 2.

That's exactly right. If you've ever served in the armed services, wherever you are, wherever you may be, the first thing you do when you attack the enemy is you cut the lines of communications. And whether it was witting or unwitting that day, whether it was knowingly or unknowingly that day, that's exactly what the terrorists did. They cut off the lines of communications. And you're exactly right. Now, you're on your own. And you hope that you start making incredibly intelligent decisions. And that's exactly what everybody had to do. The 54 guys that were in our group, because they couldn't communicate and because we didn't know what was going on, we were kind of nicked about it. You know, like, God, we were perturbed. And I'm sure anybody listening to this is going to say, well, didn't you understand?

Well, honestly, each and every one of you knew way more what was going on inside and outside those buildings than any of us that were right there because we didn't know we didn't have a clue did you manage to head to a window i know you're in an enclosed room but were you able to get to a window and confirm with your own eyes what was happening we got down to the 90th floor in the stairwell the fire stairwell door propped open everybody filing out onto the 90th floor. I'm in the fire insurance business. I shouldn't have done it, but I did it. I followed everybody out, didn't know the building, didn't know if I had to get to another fire stairwell or not. And that's where, yeah, I think I experienced the worst 30, 40 seconds of my life. Looking out those windows to the north, seeing

these gaping black holes through the sides of the building. Gray and black billows of smoke pouring out of those holes, flames redder than any red I'd ever seen before in my life, looking up the side of the building. And you could see through the smoke and the fire into those huge black holes, and you could see the fuselage of a large plane, pieces of the fuselage of a large plane, pieces of the fuselage of a large plane lodged inside that building and burning. And it was, as you mentioned earlier, a crystal

clear September day. And I remember thinking to myself, how did this pilot not see the building? We thought this was an aviation issue, right? Not an accident, not something on purpose. So many people did. Of course. And, you know, we're looking at this and I'm shaking my head saying, how did this happen? But you see furniture, paper, people being pulled out of the building against their will because of the force, pure blunt force of that collision of plane and building. And it's gruesome. It's gruesome. And you have that second of not knowing what to do, but I know that that was where I felt very strong in my stomach, that pit of my stomach,

I want my mommy feeling. I just wanted to go home. That's all I wanted to do. All I wanted to do was go home. And there were people on the floor mesmerized, I guess, by what they saw. Frozen in fear, maybe. Screaming, but not seeming to be able to move. I made an immediate decision that I was back to the fire stairwell and that I was getting out no matter what it took. And they made an announcement almost exactly at that point that went something to the effect of the event has been contained to the North Tower.

We believe that the South Tower is safe. We suggest that if you work in the South Tower, you return to your workstation. If you are a visitor, we suggest that you stay work in the South Tower, you return to your workstation. If you are a visitor, we suggest that you stay where you are until further notice. If you feel you need to proceed, please proceed with caution. Now, I can see you today. Your listeners can't see you, but I can see the look in your face, and I get that every time. How could they make that announcement? But it made lots of sense. There's a cop and a firefighter with the person in charge of building security down at the lobby level. They know what's

going on in the North Tower at this point. They can't let anybody outside. They got 25,000 people coming down these steps and it's raining concrete, steel and bodies outside. And in our building, the elevators are going up and down. The electricity is on. Ventilation system is working. Hey, let's just wait and see what's happening here before we do anything too dramatic. You've also got to coordinate the emergency response on the ground. You've got to get those firefighters in.

You've got to get the ambulance in. You've got to get the ambulance in. You've got to get the police in. So you don't want to have the 25,000 people of Tower 2 making their way down and out into the open. So you're right in terms of an emergency response approach. And who on earth, nobody is thinking that there is going to be a second plane. No one knows this is a terrorist attack. This is perceived to be an aviation disaster, an accident. The last thing you think is that another plane is coming. I couldn't have said it better. Who'd have ever known that within 18 minutes, the same thing would happen again. So I'm making my way down. When I got to that 78th floor sky lobby level that I mentioned earlier, Mary Weeman, once again,

she's out in front of some of us, okay? And she's looking back at me and some others and screaming that we should go to the elevator with her because she's not going to walk down 78 flights of steps in her shoes. She was using some words in between there that they use in New York a lot that, you know, not everybody always uses, okay? I can only imagine. I can only imagine the profanity. And I finally had a moment of common sense and good decision-making. I thought to myself, building, state of duress, fire, emergency, don't get on an elevator. It wasn't our building, but I just, in my heart of hearts, knew not the right thing to do. I never said a word to Mary, politely waved to her, turned, went back to the fire stairwell. Arguably the best decision I've made in what's still my life, because I was somewhere between 74 and 72 when the second plane plowed through

our shoulders. All this tradition of ours, our school history, our songs, this part of the history of our country, all were gone and finished. Thanks, folks. You've made it to the end of our episode. Congratulations. Well done, you. I hope you're not fast asleep. If you did fancy supporting everything we do at History Hit,

we'd love it if you would go and wherever you get these pods, give it a rating, five stars or its equivalent. a review would be great thank you very much indeed that really does make a huge difference it's one of the funny things the algorithm loves to take into account so please don't ever go and do that can seem like a small thing but actually it's kind of a big deal for us so i really appreciate it see you next time time.