Family WWII letters in Lake City recovered

LAKE CITY, Ark. (AP) - Terry Homer Templeton Jr. was playing ball at a Holland air base the day he first heard World War II was over.

“One of the boys came out telling us the (Japanese) had quit fighting,” Templeton wrote in an Aug. 12, 1945, letter. “Boy, I was already sitting on the front porch … but all good things must come to an end sometimes - which it didn’t take us long to find out the damn war was still going on.”

Japan agreed to surrender two days later. Templeton, who is no longer alive, rarely discussed his part in WWII once home, The Jonesboro Sun (https://bit.ly/1EOgOPq ) reports.

The ballgame was lost in history until recently when Templeton’s nieces recovered roughly 61 letters he wrote to family members from 1943 to 1945. At the time, he was served as a B-26C waist gunner in the Army Air Corps.

“It touches my heart,” Michele Freeman, a Lake City teacher, said. “We never knew about these letters. My mother’s house sold and the buyers found them and called my sister (Amanda Templeton Greeno of Jonesboro) to say ’we have all these letters from 70 years ago. Do you want them?’”

The letters were found inside a farm shop, surprising Templeton’s son Terry Glenn. He described his father as real easy going, quiet and humble.

Templeton, who was extremely close to his family, was 20 years old when he received his draft notice. Terry Glenn said the local draft board told Templeton he could remain home as the sole help on his father’s farm in Cooter, Missouri, but he wanted to go.

“They needed air crew,” Terry Glenn said, “and he decided he would rather fly than walk on the ground.”

He served overseas from 1944-45 in the 449th Squadron of the 322nd Bomb Group in the 9th Air Force. He completed 33 missions, including many during the Battle of the Bulge.

The letters barely touch on his everyday life, although the staff sergeant vaguely mentions times he was scheduled to fly. He also described arriving in England on Sept. 20, 1944, to discover “the farms are all in little pastures and have a rock fence around them.”

Freeman said her uncle probably left out his work so he would not worry his parents. Instead, his letters focused on the letters or items he received from family, life at home, and his younger brother, Jack, who was 14 years younger.

“I received the box of candy and books the other day,” he wrote April 10, 1944, from Belgium. “Boy was those Babe Ruths good. That is while they lasted. There is seven guys in the room together. Send some more just any time you can. But I guess it is just about as scarce over there as it is here. Send all the books you can.”

Jack - Freeman’s father - learned to read while Templeton was overseas. In 1944, Templeton sent money home so his younger brother would have gifts under the tree. Jack received a BB gun and a book of Grimm’s fairy tales.

“There was a coal shed out back and PawPaw would always keep enough coal so Dad could stay warm and read,” Freeman said. “He would stay out there for hours and hours to read. We treasured it.

“He never got rid of that book. I still have it today. I remember my grandma giving me that book as a child. I used to read it - it contained my favorite stories as a child. I got to read the same stories from the same book as my dad did.”

One important detail the letters did not mention was a Dec. 26, 1944, takeoff accident Templeton was involved in at Beauvais-Tille Airbase in France. It was in the midst of the Battle of the Bulge.

“My Dad would talk about it,” Freeman said. “I guess he mentioned it once he got home.”

The letters taught Freeman that all soldiers need communication. She said Templeton would often write that he hadn’t received any letters and request more. He would joke the family had forgotten him.

“Another thing that is overwhelming is that not all of the letters are open,” Freeman said. “After all these years, you would think someone would be curious.

“I think some arrived after he got home. I think this was my grandma’s collection. It was her treasure box.”

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Information from: The Jonesboro Sun, https://www.jonesborosun.com