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| Both aviators left behind a wife
and two young children - some of the nearly 200,00 U.S. children whose fathers died as a
result of World War II. On this Veteran’s Day, the efforts of these war victims to connect with veterans and one another are receiving increased attention through a new book, "Lost in the Victory: Reflections of American Orphans of World WW II" (University of North Texas Press). There’s even a growing group, the American W.W.II Orphans, in Bellingham, Wash., through which these middle-aged survivors share information. Smith knew time was running out on his quest to learn about his father. The men who served in the Army Air Corps 57th Bombardment Wing with Deke Smith in Corsica and Italy were in their 70’s The news came one evening last May, in a call as jarring as a shot in the dark.
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Smith, a math teacher at East
High School, was standing in the kitchen of his family’s century-old farmhouse north
of Waunakee when the phone rang. "The fellow on the other end says, ‘I
think I knew your father’ " said Smith who is married and is the father of two
sons and a daughter. "He said, ‘ I flew a B-25 bomber with him in World War
II.’ And I started to shake. After decades of fruitlessly seeking fliers who’d
served with his father, Smith had a break. He’d loaned a photo of his father, posing with a flight crew in front of a B-25, to Pat O’Malley, who displayed it in his restaurant, the Jet Room, at Truax Field. A customer, Jim Crandall, noticed the photo and asked O’Malley if he could take it to a military reunion in Oshkosh. At the reunion, Crandall found more than 10 veterans who’d served with Smith’s father. And now, the caller was asking Smith whether he’d like to come to Oshkosh the next morning to meet his father’s military colleagues. |