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My dad didn’t talk about his experiences until after His Honor Flight. Then he started having some nightmares and I would sit next to him and listen.

We knew his wooden footlocker was off limits. He instructed me to get the material in it to the “right people”. After his death we put two and two together. Dad was stationed at the thirteen air depot . They did the final airplane modifications on airplanes that took out the Japanese Fleet and THE plane. (All his life that’s what it was called— THE plane.).

He received a couple of bronze stars for his efforts. But had much guilt in all the innocent people’s death. One thing he said after the DC trip was: How many more gold stars would there have been if we hadn’t dropped the bomb and finally, “I would have been one too!” It was a healing trip.

In the trunk was hundreds of pictures of the base, a few maps and a couple of important orders. We now understood why he took a boat back home and stopped at a couple of airbases instead of heading straight home. He was the JAG officer of the base so I suppose he was in trusted with base history.
Shortly before his death the material we had was declassified and a new wing was added to the Wright Patterson Air Force base in honor of the 13th. Sis is suppose to get our/his contribution to them.

MisTIc is a long line of black cats we have in memory of those who served. The black cat was their mascot.