Last year I kept busy with research and writing a tribute to my father, getting him and his crew memorialized correctly at the WWII monument, and going through a lot of grieving after 60 + years reservoir of sadness in a Wall of Silence!
The photo includes my dad, standing back row far left,hand in pocket, pilot on that fatal flight with the entire Combat Crew 193. I have all their names but cannot identify them in the photo.
Thought you might be interested in reading , the tribute on the American World War II Orphans Network, AWON website, through the link that follows. If for any reason that does not work for you, you can Google AWON and scroll through the fathers' tributes...it's been quite a journey and were it not for this organization I'd still be thinking I was the only one who lost a father in WWII, whom I never knew, never heard much about and was ignored by his family. Actually there were more than 180,000 of us who lost fathers and who were deemed "Orphans" by our government. I've learned that many of us now in our 60's and many older lived the same loss experiences all across the country. The Wall of Silence was the way of coping that crossed cultures, parts of the country, ages. ...And many of us today are all we have.
Jerry & I found material when cleaning out my mother's house in PA after she died suddenly in 2004. What a treasure chest that she had kept through the years. Wish she could have talked about it when she was alive. Anyway, now I have accomplished another one of my retirement goals!! I use the signature below in corresponding with AWONers and the military about this ...
http://www.awon.org/awball.html
daughter of 2LT Lewis S. Ball
MIA June 20, 1944 flight enroute from Nassau,Bahamas to Charleston, SC
113th Army Air Corps, Combat Crew 193 Charleston Army Air Field
The photo includes my dad, standing back row far left,hand in pocket, pilot on that fatal flight with the entire Combat Crew 193. I have all their names but cannot identify them in the photo.
Thought you might be interested in reading , the tribute on the American World War II Orphans Network, AWON website, through the link that follows. If for any reason that does not work for you, you can Google AWON and scroll through the fathers' tributes...it's been quite a journey and were it not for this organization I'd still be thinking I was the only one who lost a father in WWII, whom I never knew, never heard much about and was ignored by his family. Actually there were more than 180,000 of us who lost fathers and who were deemed "Orphans" by our government. I've learned that many of us now in our 60's and many older lived the same loss experiences all across the country. The Wall of Silence was the way of coping that crossed cultures, parts of the country, ages. ...And many of us today are all we have.
Jerry & I found material when cleaning out my mother's house in PA after she died suddenly in 2004. What a treasure chest that she had kept through the years. Wish she could have talked about it when she was alive. Anyway, now I have accomplished another one of my retirement goals!! I use the signature below in corresponding with AWONers and the military about this ...
http://www.awon.org/awball.html
daughter of 2LT Lewis S. Ball
MIA June 20, 1944 flight enroute from Nassau,Bahamas to Charleston, SC
113th Army Air Corps, Combat Crew 193 Charleston Army Air Field
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