Raised by their single mother and grandmother and living on the minimum wage, two brothers became pilots in WWII. One flew B-17 bombers; the other flew P-47 and P-51 fighters. Both were killed in action. Prolific letter writers, the brothers wrote more than 200 letters to their mother between 1942 and 1945 describing their new adventures in their ever more dangerous world. In these letters, discovered many years later by her grandson, you will see in a very personal way the war a mother saw as presented to her by her sons. Not a technical description of military tactics, battles, and jargon, the letters instead create a simple yet profound human interest story of a small, close knit American family torn apart by the reality of war. You'll read of both the loneliness and excitement they felt being away from home for the first time, see them grow from awestruck boys when they first observe military planes up close to confident pilots of the fastest and largest planes in the AAF. You will even take a ride on a dangerous combat mission. You will find out about their frustrations, perseverance, humor, courage, and relationships. But mostly you will see how two brothers with totally different personalities, reflected even in the types of planes they flew, shared a common bond of love for their mother that was unshakable. When the letters stop, you will get to read the dreaded telegrams from the War Department that took their place. And finally you get to actually hear from their mother as she describes her worst fears and the ultimate tragedy with which she was confronted as the horror of war came home to her, not once but twice. Besides the letters, there is a section of very dramatic eyewitness accounts explaining what happened to the brothers on each of their final missions. There is also a brief biographical sketch of the women who loved them and were left behind. The book is enhanced with numerous pictures with descriptive captions. For WWII aviation buffs there is a detailed list of the types of aircraft each brother trained on, including the hours and specific training facility.
About the Author: On March 11, 1944, two months before I was born, my father was killed when his crippled B-17 bomber was shot down over the Adriatic Sea. He was 23 years old. Eleven months later, when I was nine months old, his younger brother and only sibling was killed when his P-51 Mustang fighter crashed in a cow pasture in Holland. He was 22 years old. We had met and played together while he was home on leave. I grew up hearing that my father was "such a nice person" from my mother and hearing little anecdotes about both boys from my grandmother. That sufficed until I was 36 years old. In 1980 the navigator on my father's plane and one of the two survivors contacted me. He lived near Boston. I worked in Boston. We began meeting regularly for coffee, and suddenly my father came alive. I heard about the back of his leather flight jacket soaked through with sweat after a mission in spite of the frigid temperatures at 20,000 feet in an unheated airplane; about his annoyance at the green "punk major" who tried to "correct" experienced combat pilots; about the time when returning with their plane shot full of holes, my father asked Stan (the navigator) where they were. Stan replied, "I don't know Bobby. As near as I can figure we should be over Filene's Basement." I wanted more. I became interested in WWII aircraft and studied Stan's diary of all their missions. My family travelled to a Confederate Air Force show and excitedly watched B-17s and P-51s and many other planes from WWII roaring around us. But I felt frustrated that I couldn't learn more about my father and uncle on a personal level. Then I discovered a treasure chest. In 1985 I came across a stack of neatly bundled letters in a drawer at my grandmother's house. Still in their original envelopes were over 200 letters that my father and uncle had written to her from the time they first left home until their lives tragically ended. Here was the insight to them as people that I so desperately wanted. As I read the letters their personalities jumped off the page. They became real. And even today, many years later, I get so caught up in their world when I read the letters that I momentarily forget that they aren't coming home. And that is always followed by a sense of the horror my grandmother felt when the letters abruptly stopped. I want people, especially my children and their children, to get to know these two young men who lost their lives nearly 70 years ago. I do not want them to be forgotten.