| The following is the Preface to the 1987 document that Dad distributed to the men of the outfit during the reunion in Long Beach, California. —DMT |
| This “unpublished publication” consists of the actual diary I kept (probably unlawfully) for the major part of the nearly three years I was overseas during World War II as a member of the 47th Bombardment Group (Light), 97th Bombardment Squadron. It also includes some other things I wrote at odd times overseas, such as poetry (many would not call it that) and descriptions of certain special events. The diary entries themselves are usually quite brief because the pages in the initial diary were 2½”x4″ in size, with only six narrow lines allowed per date. These were penciled notes which faded badly over the years and in some cases could be read only with the help of a magnifying glass and a bright spotlight. This little diary ran from September 1942 to March 1944, at which time I was able to get a bigger book and make somewhat longer entries. However, there were many gaps in the diary over those years, and I’m sorry now that I didn’t keep a better record. Any reader of this account will have to remember that I was writing it mainly for myself (sometimes as a means of just keeping up with what day it was on the calendar). Since I was in the 97th Squadron, it is obvious that most (not all) of the references are to people and events in the 97th. My main reason for starting to put these jottings in readable form was some pressure from my three children (principally my son) to make them available to the family. Then in 1982, when Joe McGahan of the 84th Bombardment Squadron put his notes and recollections into “A Letter to My Granddaughters” and made his account available to the reunion attendees, I felt that I could do no less than follow his generous example. One last statement: This is an “expurgated” edition in the sense that I have in a few instances deleted certain descriptions and comments which might even now needlessly cause a bit of hurt. Those types of things were largely due to my own youth and naïveté at the time and should have no place in this “in-house” document. In some cases, an event might be referred to without names attached—for the same reason. My purpose is to provide some information, stir some memories, and perhaps present a fairly accurate (though sketchy) recollection of how we lived, what we faced, how we endured—according to this one person’s written notes. Peace May 1987 Donald J. Tolle Carbondale, Illinois |