On New Year’s Eve, December 31, 1944, a telegram arrived at the Farrar household in Atlanta, Georgia. The news that George Edwin Farrar’s family had been waiting for had finally arrived. Their son was alive. He was a prisoner of war, but he was alive.
It had been ninety-five days, more than three months, since the September 28 mid-air collision between the Lead Banana, on which he was the waist gunner, and the Lazy Daisy. It was the first word any of the families of the boys in the crew had heard that one of their own was safe. As telegrams tended to be, it was short, but this one was oh so sweet.
The telegram reads:
Report just received through the International Red Cross states that your son Staff Sergeant George E Farrar is a Prisoner of War of the German Government. Letter of information follows from Provost Marshal General=
It was signed
Dunlop Acting the Adjutant General.
Farrar’s mother, Raleigh Mae Farrar, did not waste any time contacting the families of the other boys on the Busee crew to share the good news.
© Cindy Farrar Bryan and The Arrowhead Club, 2014
The Arrowhead Club 