Richard Martin Watt was born in 1930 in La Grange, IL but spent the majority of his childhood and adult years living in northern New Jersey. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1952 and was commissioned an ensign in the US Navy, subsequently promoted to lieutenant junior grade. Following the Navy, he worked as an executive for 45 years at Crossfield Products Corp., a construction industry manufacturing firm, in Roselle Park, NJ, retiring as President and then serving as Chairman of the Board of Directors until his death in 2015. He authored several books on the subject of European history: "Dare Call It Treason," (pub.,1963) about the French Army mutinies in World War I; "The Kings Depart," (pub.,1969) about Germany between the wars, and "Bitter Glory," (pub.,1979) the history of a free Poland from 1918 to 1939. His books were published in eight different languages and were reviewed favorably by The New York Times, Time magazine and others. He also wrote over 200 book reviews for The New York Times, The London Review of Book, The Christian Science Monitor and others. He was awarded the prestigious Waclaw Jedrzejewics History Medal in 1996 from The Pilsudski Institute of America. While he would say he was lucky to have never experienced the "starving author desperate to be published" he did feel the work of writing, while something he loved and found immensely satisfying, was hard work. He passed away on January 26, 2015 in Glen Ridge, NJ.