World War II Journal and Photo
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GUEST:
What I brought was a diary from my father, who was a prisoner of war during World War II.
APPRAISER:
Mm-hmm.
GUEST:
He was a member of the Air Corps at that time-- it wasn't the Air Force-- and he flew missions out of England. He was a navigator on B-17s.
APPRAISER:
B-17 bomber. Now, he's in this image right here?
GUEST:
Yes. In the front row, yes.
APPRAISER:
Second one, right here?
GUEST:
Yes.
APPRAISER:
We have his journal here. We see a lot of World War II journals-- World War I and World War II-- but we don't normally see them as nicely done as this. The outside of the book is covered with one of his Red Cross packages. It's the paper... Paper packaging.
GUEST:
Oh, wow.
APPRAISER:
If you look inside, you can see part of the label right here. So the Red Cross packages that he would have gotten his food and other things in were wrapped in this paper, which is kind of neat. He used it to cover the journal. On the inside, we're gonna go to a few of the images. On the inside, we have... this one, which is one of my favorites. And it's a silkworm and it's in appreciation for basically weaving the silk to make his parachute, which saved his life that day.
GUEST:
Life, yup.
APPRAISER:
Another one here which is important is, he's, he's mentioning his, basically his first letter home, which he received on February 17, 1945.
GUEST:
Wow.
APPRAISER:
After being captured since August. Here we have a date that it was shipped from home December 19, 1944, and when he actually received it on February 17, 1945. And in the beginning, this is another interesting one here. So here we have him as a navigator in his B-17, and... seeing another plane next to him being shot down, and saying, "So long, lads," to his friends in the other plane. Pretty moving thing. So it's a little fragile. We'll get it back up here. We were able to find some of the missing action reports for your father's plane being shot down. Yes, very, very good stuff.
GUEST:
Wow.
APPRAISER:
And I'm gonna read you a little bit of one of them, and it's describing his plane going down. It says, "As soon as it started turning, one parachute came out, but did not open immediately. I swung my turret and followed this one down, and soon after, I was able to count ten open chutes. These were floating down very near the target, and flack was very intense at that point. I saw the ship continue to veer to the right for some distance, then I lost sight of it." So he was a turret gunner in another B-17, and he saw your dad's plane going down.
GUEST:
Yes. Wow.
APPRAISER:
The fact that he survived, where two of his plane mates did not.
GUEST:
Did not.
APPRAISER:
And he survived prison camp, was pretty, pretty amazing. So where was the prison camp he was in?
GUEST:
In Barth.
APPRAISER:
Well, this has two different values. So we've got the monetary value, which at auction would be in about the $2,000 to $3,000 range. However, we have another value with it, and that's its historical value. As far as I'm concerned, its historic value is priceless. It's just a wonderful journal.
GUEST:
Yup.
APPRAISER:
Wonderful drawings and a wonderful history in it. Thanks for bringing it in today.
GUEST:
Thank you, Dad.
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