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for Helen if he didn’t come home.
CHAPTER FOUR
The First Mission
February 1944 · Old Buckenham, England
Daddy’s first combat mission was on the eighth of February, 1944. He wrote it down in the small navy diary he had made from his father’s old 1941 appointment book — the DIAL 1944, he called it. It was the only place he could tell the truth about what it felt like.
Every entry was a letter to my mother. He addressed her only rarely — once in a great while he would write “Dearest Helen” — but she was the reader he was writing for. She was the reason he kept the pen moving.
February 8, 1944
Tuesday
Got up a little after ten. Went and got my rations. Ate dinner. Came back and cleaned up the room. Sewed up socks — patched shoes. Started writing to Mom and Helen. Sam Rogers’ people really are young. He had his fork in his left hand upside down and knife in right hand and used it to cut. He brings the food to his mouth in one hand and takes the cup and drinks. Waits till done — I’ll re-read Helen’s letters. Got first thought. Didn’t get any mail today. Wrote Helen and Bo — Ma and home. Boys are living from the crack of the ship dry. The missions were scrubbed for today. We aren’t alerted for tomorrow either. So we are going to bed early after tomorrow. I waited like to go on any three no bell missions. The lead pilot and pilot are recommended for four air medal on the first raid if they live long — that my job’s followed a hundred plants over the target and give a medal. Some of our ships got somewhat with the id. Ronson [Robert H.] and White [Harold B.] tickle me about their wanting to go on missions. Have to tell Helen all about it. JNW
— Jim
— Lou
Daddy wrote in the diary the way he thought — running, unbroken, half to himself. He used the old appointment book because paper was scarce and precious. He wrote in pencil, in small cramped letters, filling every white space he could find. This is his handwriting exactly as it appeared. I have transcribed nothing to make it neater.
February 9, 1944
Wednesday
Got up about 11:30. Took a shower, ate dinner and mailed the package to Helen. The boys really had a tough mission for today. Gotha, Germany. Southwest of Berlin. Most of the group has come back but three ships haven’t. Robertson and Kenneth. Waiting to see if they will come. Some ships are pretty shot up.
— Jim
That entry, one line — three ships haven’t come back — was how he learned to grieve. Quickly, quietly, and then back to the next day’s mission. Thirty men in three planes. Some of them friends. None of them named in a diary his wife might one day read.
He would fly his own first mission three days later.
— 90 —
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young pilot’s war, told in his own words.