A Memorial Day Tribute – Infantry and Air
This Memorial Day, I'm remembering two relatives who each served in one of the 20th century's two world wars.
Pearl Harbor Day – A diarist responds to war
Pearl Harbor was bombed seventy-six years ago today. My mom, Lillian Koroschetz, started a brand new diary on New Year's Eve, 1941 reflecting back on the previous year and the effects the barely three-week-old war was already having on the every-day lives of Americans.
World War II girl makes bomber carburetors; no boys to date!
World War II's "Rosie the Riveter" comes alive in this letter to Frank from a gal back in Chicago. She's working on a "beauty of a carburetor" for bombers. I doubt many girls before the war even knew what a carburetor was. The World War II woman became versed in previously male-only arcane knowledge. Another sign of the World War II years: no boys to date. Read on.
A star of a gift
A gift from your child—always a treasure, especially when he is thousands of miles away. Frank's mother makes the most of it. My guess is (given it's a "star") is that it's a version of his Army Air Force Patch shown here. As always, I keep a lot of my grandmother's misspellings to give a sense of how hard she worked to communicate with her son despite her struggles with English.
Everybody jittery
Boys are disappearing, this neighbor reports, heading to war. No wonder everyone is "jittery."