He was a mechanic stationed at a remote air field in Burma, servicing aircraft flying over the Himalayas, "The Hump". He was near a place called Myitkyina. The Allies were airlifting supplies to the Chinese army fighting the Japanese. It kept a large part of the Japanese forces pinned down, and the fighting was desperate, so the Japanese were trying to do everything they could to dislodge us from that part of the world. His airfield was bombed, but the Japanese never hit it. He saw no other action himself.

All I have of him is his uniform patches and insignia and a few documents and photographs. One of them shows him knee-deep in a river, firing a carbine into the water. His fatigues were rolled up and he was wearing no shirt. On the back he had written "Fishing for our dinner". That was all before I was born. He was a man in his mid-thirties.

My father died when I was 4 years old. I have only two very brief memories of him, I'm not even sure I didn't dream them. When I die, no one else in the world will remember him. Only that photograph will remain, a GI firing his M1 into the water.