Memorial Day, 2020

On this Memorial Day during the 75th anniversary year of the ending of WW2, I'd like memorialize two WW2 veterans who are dear to my heart -- my father and my father-in-law.

My father, Leslie Pelham Pitts (1922-1976), served in the US Army Air Corps/Force as a top turret gunner and flight engineer of a B-17 heavy bomber in the 731st Bomb Squadron, 452nd Bomb Group, 8th Air Force, based at Deopham Green, England.  You've read about his exploits in previous blog posts ("What Did You Do in the War, Daddy?").  This picture was taken in the fall of 1945 at Deming Air Base, New Mexico as he was being demobilized.  He's wearing his self-decorated leather flight jacket.

My father-in-law, James Curtis Triplett (1918-2003), served in the US Army Air Corps/Force in a medium bomber squadron assigned to the China-Burma-India Theater.  I don't know which one, but I do know that they transited across North Africa after the German/Italian surrender in Tunisia because he found an M1911A1 pistol in the desert outside the air field which my wife and I still have.  Once he got to India, his primary task was training Chinese aerial gunners for the Chinese Air Force.

And although not a WW2 veteran, I would be remiss if I didn't memorialize my brother, Patrick Arthur Pelham Pitts (1952-2010), who served in the US Army during the early 1970s as a personnel clerk with the US Army Security Agency in Augsburg, Germany and at Goodfellow Air Force Base, San Angelo, Texas.

You are all missed dearly!  Requiesce in pace, comrades.