When my brother was killed I was 19 years old and unfortunately he was only 23. The way we learned of his death was rather bazaar and sad. Where we lived was a very small town where everyone knew everyone. There was a small Post Office where we picked up our mail. We were waiting to hear of his promotion from Flight Officer to Second Lieutenant. I picked up the mail that day and drove home as fast as I could with a very official letter. Second Louie for sure. But that was not what it was, imagine the shock to my parents when they read the letter (No. 1). No telegram no fore warning. No. 2 letter is a follow up from Colonel Storrie. No. 3 letter is the details of the crash from Army Air Force Headquarters. My father wrote many many letters trying to sort out everything. It was extremely trying, especially for my mother; I don't think she ever recovered from the shock of it all. She died 7 years later.

My brother was born in Passaic, New Jersey on February 28, 1923. In 1924, my parents moved to California, my father being a Landscape Architect with a company that was developing Palos Verdes Estates. My brother went to grammar school there and to High School in the next town. He was a Boy Scout and Sea Scout. Upon graduating from high school in 1941, he went to work at Douglas Aircraft Company. He joined the Air Force in October 1942, and was inducted in February 1943. He graduated Pilot, four-engine bomber, at Pecos Army Air Force Base, Pecos Texas and left for combat duty May 1945. He was assigned co-pilot B-29.

I last talked to him in May 1945, when he called the University of Oregon and got me out of swim class to say goodbye and that he was shipping out. In the last few years I've thought, I really never got to know him that well. We were both too young.