April 16, 1945

Hello Father.

Do you remember what you did on April 16, 1945, five days after your 23rd birthday? If it doesn’t all quite come back in a rush, allow me to enlighten you.

You were awakened sometime around 4:30 a.m. by someone making loud noises. It was cold and you were yet again in some weird place that you had no control over.

You probably fumbled for your boots, regretting the night before, and lit the first cigarette of the day.

You put on your uniform and shuffled out of the Quonset hut with the rest of the guys and went to the mess tent, where you half-heartedly poked at the the powdered eggs. Your mind was elsewhere.

Then you went to the briefing room. Your commander, maybe Fred Holdredge, strode up to the board and unveiled a spot on a map. There was probably a collective groan. That spot was Landshut, Germany. You didn’t know the name of your Consolidated Industries’ B-24 bomber that particular morning. They were shifting them around so much.

But you and your crew, under the command of Walter Moseley, with rear gunner Joe Pilarski, all around your stately age of 22, hopped on a jeep and rode in the darkness to where your plane was waiting.

You wore your cumbersome flight gear and struggled to light cigarettes but you made it aboard through the tiny doors and intricate tunnels. There was Your Spot.

You were a Radio Operator for the Mighty Eighth, and you were on your last mission. You were going out yet again for an ass-numbing 9-hour flight to bomb some Nazi marshalling yards you’d never heard of, with five, maybe ten of your best buddies. You knew, or maybe didn’t know, the odds. They sure as hell didn’t publish them. But the probability of your landing back at Rackheath field was less than 30 percent, the absolute worst attrition rate in the entire armed forces to date.

But on that day you dutifully got on that plane. Despite your probable hangover and upset stomach, the plane took off with Moseley at the helm and you settled down for the mission, uncomplaining, just trying to smoke through your oxygen mask. Probably had a mickey on hand as well.

And then you bombed the Nazis. The IP had been announced and maybe the flak was starting up. You watched, or perhaps you declined to, those myriad clusters of destruction that rained below.

What were you thinking that day, 64 years ago?

I know you can’t remember, so I’m reminding you. You were terrified. But you wanted to come back, and you did. The only reason you are reading this is because I am writing it, looking at your crew picture with you not in it because, as usual, you were the photographer.

Please remember what you were doing on April 16, 1945.

Because I do.