Letters from the edge

There is a lot be said and surely a lot has been said. Here are letters from a past long gone but the situations and events are fresh as the day they were told. My Great Uncles Otto and Walter Chance both served and sacrificed. When I read their letters its like a part of history coming alive. - Otto was quite a fellow. Mechanic, navigator, pilot, Aikido instructor, prison guard and generally a pretty nice guy. I met him twice as a child and was better after each encounter. Walter on the other hand seemed to my reckoning to be just as interesting a person but cut from a different cloth that Otto.

While Otto flew with the Army Air Corp and crashed twice Walter was a member of the 601st Tank Destroyers attached to the 1st Infantry Division (the Big Red 1 ) and fought in all three European theaters of war. Both told stories which I can barely recall but reading the letters brought back all the times Mom and grandma talked about these two boys let loose on the world coming home years latter grown and very introspective men. How they made it through to me remains a miracle of Grace.

Letters from Walter "Chance"

March 16 1942