Bill Mauldin:

[MineralMan]

9. Like you, I looked through that book again and again.

My father didn't talk about the war, either, so I had to learn about it from books. Decades later, he would tell some stories about the war, but not a lot. It was such a different time. At 19-20 years of age, he was a first pilot in a B-17. One of the very youngest. There are photos of him and his crew, along with photos of he and my mom, who married him just before he shipped out. I was born a week before the Hiroshima bomb, so that gives you an idea of the time period when he was flying bombing missions. If I remember correctly, he flew 13 bombing missions near the end of the war in Europe, including a mission to Ploesti.

After the war in Europe ended, he flew people here and there in the B-17, operating out of North Africa and Italy. Then, about three months after I was born, he flew his B-17 back to the US, via Brazil, Puerto Rico, and Florida, where he was mustered out of the service and took a train to Arizona where my mom and I were waiting for him. From there, they moved to a small town in California where I grew up.

When I was 20, I was in the USAF myself. I carried my father's B-4 bag along all throughout my service as my suitcase, along with the standard blue duffel bag.