Here are some photos of my dad when he was a
participant in WW2, aka World War II, the last war this country
fought with everything we could throw. He's still around and in
good health (clean living, don't you know), still married to my
mom (Maxine), and doesn't have or want a computer. Which means
the privilege falls to me.
This first picture (on the left) is the
standard dignified at rest pose taken of soldiers in uniform, in
which he appears with uniform neatly pressed, probably sometime
in late 1944. That could be a barracks behind him, but I can't be
sure. I'm not even sure where it was taken, but it says 1944 on
the back. Uh, the back of the picture, not the back of the
barracks.
Now in this second picture (on the right), he's a little more at rest, wearing "fatigues" in Amchitka, in the Aleutian islands in 1943. That's Alaska, for those of you who haven't studied geography lately, and it's cold there. Note the bulky appearance of the clothing: as many layers as will fit in the costume.
The guys there built their own runway in the effort to protect the USA's west coast from the Japanese. Seems to me they did a pretty good job, since Disneyland is still there.
In the third picture (below left), we see
the set of wheels he was allowed to play in as a reward for being
good in the military. We don't have an exact date for the
picture, and I only recently found out what kind of airplane he's leaning
on -- I am told it's a B-29 -- but he was the navigator, which
means he looked at the stars and figured out where they were and
where they were going and when to turn left. Airplanes don't get
very good mileage, but they're great for picking up chicks. (Mom
had been an airplane mechanic at the time, you see).
Old Dad has some pretty good stories left in him, and I plan to twist his arm and get him to write them down on paper. If that plan meets with success, they will appear here eventually, along with possibly more pictures -- you never know.
Note: if you served in the Aleutians, and you're surfing the
net looking for old war buddies, Jesse does not have a
computer or an email address. But you can contact me at whpayne23@hotmail.com
which I check once a week or so.
[update: my Dad passed away this morning (4.29.2008), less then two
weeks before his 87th birthday. He will have great rewards in heaven,
and I had the foresight to record his stories in audio form, which I
and the rest of the family will treasure]
