Thread by @LSArifles

“Dear Mom, Pop and family,

Now that I am actually here I see that the chances of my returning to all of you are quite slim, therefore I want to write this letter now while I am yet able.

I want you to know how much I love each of you.

You mean everything to me and it is the realisation of your love that gives me the courage to continue. Mom and Pop - we have caused you innumerable hardships and sacrifices - sacrifices which you both made readily and gladly that we might get more from life.

I have always determined to show my appreciation to you by enabling you both to have more of the pleasures of life - but this war has prevented my doing so for the past three years.

If you receive this letter I shall be unable to fulfil my desires, for I have requested that this letter be forwarded only in the event I do not return.

You have had many times more your share of illness and deaths in the family - still you have continued to exemplify what true parents should. I am sorry to add to your grief —

but at all times realise that my thoughts are of you constantly and that I feel that in some small way I am helping to bring this wasteful war to a conclusion.

We of the United States have something to fight for — never more fully have I realised that. There just is no other country with comparable wealth, advancement or standard of living. The USA is worth a sacrifice!

Remember always that I love you each most fervently and I am proud of you. Consider, Mary, my wife, as having taken my place in the family circle and watch over each other.

Love to my family
Jack”

Second Lieutenant John Keith “Jack” Lundberg, navigator.
534th Bomber Squadron, 381st Bomber Group( Heavy), Eight Air Force, United States Army Air Forces.

Killed in action over Abbeville, France shortly after D-Day when his B-17 Flying Fortress was hit by anti-aircraft fire.

His body was discovered a year after his bomber was lost, and reinterred at the American Cemetery in Normandy.