Sad News for Mrs. Bryant
Four of the John Buslee Crew, left to right, George Edwin Farrar (waist gunner), Lenard Leroy Bryant (engineer/top turret gunner), Erwin V. Foster (ball turret gunner), and Sebastiano Joseph Peluso (radio operator/gunner)
Lenard Bryant’s wife, Maudene, probably received the sad news about the same time as the Buslees. She wrote to Raleigh Mae Farrar on February 2, 1945 to share the news.
February 2, 1945
Littlefield, TexasDear Mrs. Farrar,
I have at last heard from the War Department.
Thru the Inter. Red Cross my husband has been reported killed in action on the 28th of Sept.
I just can’t believe it and won’t until the last minute. I am so glad you have heard from George and if he ever gets back I hope he can tell what did happen.
But I can’t feel that my husband is gone.
I hope and pray that the others will hear as you did.
I hope to hear from you soon.
As Ever,
Mrs. Ruby M. Bryant
Like the others receiving the news that their loved ones were killed in the mid-air collision between the Lead Banana and Lazy Daisy on September 28, 1944, Maudene Bryant could not believe that it was true.
© Cindy Farrar Bryan and The Arrowhead Club, 2014
Mrs. Henson Writes to Mrs. Buslee
On February 1, 1945, William Alvin Henson’s wife, Harriet, wrote a sympathy letter to John Oliver (Jay) Buslee’s mother. The Buslees had just learned on January 28 that their son had been killed on September 28, 1944 in the same mid-air collision between Lead Banana and Lazy Daisy that claimed the life of William Henson. Harriet had learned of her husband’s fate just two days before Christmas. It was her infant daughter’s first Christmas, a holiday she would never be able to celebrate with her father.
February 1, 1945
Dear Mrs. Buslee,
I am so sorry that I have to write this letter. I had prayed that I wouldn’t, because, to say the least, it isn’t very pleasant.
Mrs. Buslee, to say I am sorry is trite, but I really am sorry. To lose a son is different from losing a husband (presuming that we have), and since I have my little girl I feel that I can sympathize with you more, because I just don’t know what I would do if something happened to her.
It isn’t human nature to give up hope. So please don’t, I haven’t. I asked God to bring Bill back to me and I believe He will. Bill has to come back and see his little girl.
Give my best regards to Mr. Buslee and your daughter, and know that I am thinking about you. I feel so close to you even though I do not know you. Maybe when Jay and Bill get back, we can all get together and have a gay time.
Sincerely,
Harriet Henson
Thank you to John Dale Kielhofer, nephew of John Oliver (Jay) Buslee, for sharing this letter from Harriet Henson to his grandmother.
© Cindy Farrar Bryan and The Arrowhead Club, 2014
Map of Prisoner of War Camps in Germany
With her son a prisoner of war of the Germans, Raleigh Mae Farrar received the monthly Prisoners of War Bulletin. As stated in the mast head, the bulletin was published by the American National Red Cross for the Relatives of American Prisoners of War and Civilian Internees. The February 1945 edition included a map of prison camps.
February 1945 Prisoners of War Bulletin, Volume 3, Number 2
Raleigh Mae circled Stalag Luft IV where her son, George Edwin Farrar of the John Oliver Buslee crew, was being held. Also held at Stalag Luft IV were Harry Allen Liniger and Wilfred Frank Miller of the James Brodie crew. George Marshall Hawkins, Jr, navigator of the Brodie crew was held some distance away to the southwest at the Obermassfeld Hospital which served Stalag 9-C.
The February 1945 issue of the Prisoners of War Bulletin also noted that Russian advances in January were bringing many changes in the camps, with the expectation that men held in the camps would be moved to stay ahead of the Russian advances. The Soviet Red Army crossed the Oder River into Germany and reached within fifty miles of Berlin.
In a section of the bulletin named Camp Movements, the following information was reported:
Grosstychow, in Pomerania, where Stalag Luft IV with its large complement of British and American airmen was located, was close to the combat zone in late January.
Also a blow to the Germans, earlier in January the Germans had withdrawn from the Ardennes, giving the Allies the victory in the month-long Battle of the Bulge on January 25.
© Cindy Farrar Bryan and The Arrowhead Club, 2014
The Buslees Receive Bad News
On January 31, 1945, John Buslee, father of pilot John Oliver (Jay) Buslee, wrote to George Edwin Farrar’s mother, Raleigh Mae Farrar. Farrar was the wasit gunner of Jay Buslee’s bomber crew. Buslee and Farrar and the other boys in the crew had been reported missing in action from Mission 201 to Magdeburg, Germany on September 28, 1944. On New Year’s Eve 1944, Farrar had been reported as a prisoner of war. Now four months after the mid-air collision between Lead Banana carrying the Buslee crew, and Lazy Daisy carrying the Brodie crew, Jay Buslee was reported as killed in action on the September 28 mission.
It must have been a very hard letter to write. Instead of writing from home as he had done previously, Buslee wrote this letter from his office. Home was about fifteen miles from his office downtown. On that long drive into work, did John Buslee even notice how cold it was on this winter day in Chicago when all he could think about was the news, and news he couldn’t believe, about his only son?
January 31, 1945
Neumann – Buslee & Wolfe Inc
Merchants – Importers – Manufacturers
224 – 230 W. Huron Street, Chicago (10), IllinoisMrs. Raleigh Mae Farrar
79 East Lake Terrace N.E.
Atlanta, GeorgiaDear Mrs. Farrar:
On January 28 we received a telegram from the Adjutant General at Washington, D.C. advising that our son John O. was killed in action on September 28 while over Germany.
This, you can realize, was shocking news, particularly as we felt the time was in our favor and that the delay in definite word reaching us was due to his being a prisoner of war.
Having promised to keep you advised of any news reaching us prompts writing this letter. Mrs. Buslee, my daughter and self just can’t realize that the word sent to us is correct. We are hopeful that some error has been made due to all of the confusion in war-torn Germany and that we will ultimately get different word from our son.
We trust that you have heard recently from your son, George, and that he is in good health.
Sincerely yours,
John Buslee
John Oliver (Jay) Buslee was identified as killed in action on an October 21, 1944 Telegram Form. This form is part of MACR9753, the Missing Air Crew Report which contained information on both the crews of Lead Banana and Lazy Daisy. In addition to identifying Buslee, the Telegram Form also reported the identifications of David Albrecht (Buslee’s co-pilot), Lenard Bryant (Buslee’s top turret gunner), Lloyd Vevle (Brodie’s co-pilot), and Byron Atkins (Brodie’s bombardier). All but Atkins had previously been recovered dead, but remained unidentified until this point. Atkins had been carried off in the nose of Lazy Daisy, away from the rest of the crew and the crash site, and had just recently been found dead and identified.
I assume the Albrecht, Bryant, Vevle, and Atkins families also received news of their sons’ deaths about the same time as the Buslees.
© Cindy Farrar Bryan and The Arrowhead Club, 2014
We Can’t Give Up
The Stearns, parents of Lead Banana bombardier Robert Sumner (Bobby) Stearns, had been notified by the War Department on December 23, 1944, that their son had been killed in action on September 28. They chose not to believe the news and held out hope that their son would be coming home one day. On January 24, 1945, Mrs. Stearns wrote to Mrs. Farrar.
January 24, 1945
Lapine, OregonDear Mrs. Farrar:
How happy we all were to get your letter yesterday saying you had heard direct from your son. I can imagine nothing ever looked any more wonderful than his own writing after all the Government reports. That let you know it was really true that he was alive and well treated. How happy we would be to get this same word – nothing could be more wonderful to us but we’ve had no further word about Bobby, and I don’t believe any of the others have, either.
We had a letter from Mrs. Peluso today and they had been told practically the same story about the accident by some friend of theirs. Coming from so many different ones that it was a collision and not anti-aircraft that put their plane down surely some more of them got down unhurt.
The way the war is going surely it can’t be too long until we will all know more than we do now. I hope your son is soon home safe and well and bringing good news of the others. We just can’t give up but that our Bobby is safe somewhere even tho we have nothing more than our faith to go on.
Our oldest son was given the emergency furlough he should have had at Xmas time and got home Tuesday. He is at the Sheppard Field, Texas being classified for some Air Force work besides piloting after having been a flight instructor for a year for the Army.
I am glad your son is home from the So. Pacific – how nice for all of you just at this time. So many boys from our home town are in the Navy and some have been very close to serious hurt. One boy had his shirt blown from his back and several killed beside him. One of my son’s schoolmates is in India with the Airborne Engineers. I hope you hear from your son there often. Kenneth’s folks have heard from him quite regularily.
Thank you so very much for your very kind letter. We are so interested in hearing everything you hear from your son. When you write tell him “Bob’s mother sends him her best wishes.”
Sincerely,
Mrs. Stearns
Notes:
- Mrs. Peluso’s son, Sebastiano, was also on the Lead Banana on September 28, 1944. Word was getting around that the War Department had not told the next-of-kin the truth about their sons’ plane. If they couldn’t believe the War Department’s version of the crash, should they believe the deparment’s news about their son’s death?
- The son home from the South Pacific was Robert Burnham (Bob) Farrar, who had been injured in a kamikaze attack on the USS Intrepid.
- The son in India was Carroll Johnson Farrar, Jr. Farrar family stories indicate he served in Asia, but I don’t have record of exactly where.
© Cindy Farrar Bryan and The Arrowhead Club, 2014
Still Waiting For News
On January 20, 1945 Franklin D. Roosevelt was sworn into office for his fourth term as President and Harry Truman was sworn in as Vice President. Across the globe, the Soviet Red Army was advancing into East Prussia, putting more and more pressure on the Germans.
Four days later, Mr. Buslee, the father of the pilot of Lead Banana, again wrote to Raleigh Mae Farrar, the mother of the Banana’s waist gunner. The families of the missing boys were communicating with each other often, quickly passing along any news good or bad.
January 24, 1945
411 Wisner Avenue
Park Ridge, IllinoisDear Mrs. Farrar,
Through Mr. Henson we learned that you have received a card from your son, George. This is indeed wonderful news.
Would like to hear from you as to what kind of a message he sent to you and we sincerely hope that as developments in Europe show such rapid advances by the Russians that it will mean the early closing of the battle over there and so release the prisoners of war so that they may return to their families at a very early date.
We have had no word pertaining to our son, Jay, nor any word from any of the next of kin outside of Mr. Henson and Mr. Stearns who unfortunately did not have very good news. We also have had a very recent letter from Mrs. Bryant and she is trying to keep up her spirits in the hope that her husband is safe and sound.
With every good wish for your continued good health and the hope that all of your boys write you often, I am,
Sincerely yours,
John Buslee
© Cindy Farrar Bryan and The Arrowhead Club, 2014
My Dear Boy
George Edwin Farrar, waist gunner on the John Oliver (Jay) Buslee crew, 544th Bomb Squad, 384th Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force in WWII
In early January 1945, the Soviet Red Army invaded Nazi-occupied Poland, sending the Germans into a retreat. On January 17, the Soviets captured Warsaw, which was about three hundred miles from Stalag Luft IV in Gross Tychow, Pomerania (now Tychowo, Poland). George Edwin Farrar, Wilfred Frank Miller, and Harry Allen Liniger were all prisoners of the Germans and were all held at Stalag Luft IV.
On January 18, the Farrar family had received their son’s first letter home from prison camp. He had written it on October 24, 1944. I’ll re-publish his letter here. George Edwin Farrar wrote:
Dearest Mother: I find it rather hard to write even a letter as small as this. Of course, we can’t say much, but are being treated O.K. We have plenty books and I spend most of my time reading. I hope you will have plenty chicken when I get there. I think I could eat a couple all alone. I guess Gene is doing good in school by now. Tell him to study hard, and make good grades. How is Martha getting along with her new job. I hope she likes it. I’ll bet by now she is having a hard time with her boyfriends. I wish you would send me some candy. Be sure it is something that will keep until it gets here, because it is a long trip. I’ll make up for these letters when I get home. Love to all, George
The next day, Raleigh Mae Farrar wrote back to her son:
January 19, 1945
Atlanta, Ga.My Dear Boy,
We were so happy to get your letter yesterday. Do write as often as possible for its so good to hear from you.
I mailed you a box and sent in order for cigaretts. If you need clothes let me know. I can send them. Things here at home are just about the same. Dad doesn’t improve. Gene is taller than I now, and is doing good in school. Gene and I will start our garden and chickens soon. Dot and kids are doing pretty good. Demmey will go to first grade, so Dot feels like he is really growing up. Beverly is as pretty as ever. She had flu and its taking a long time to get rid of it. I will be on the look out for some good candy and as I know now what I can send, I will be ready when my next labels come. I do hope you get the box. We all love you and hope and pray you will get along good. I will try to send some books.
Be good and write.
Lots and Lots of Love,
Mother
Raleigh Mae Farrar’s letter would never be received by her son in Stalag Luft IV. By the time it would arrive, Stalag Luft IV was empty of prisoners. The letter was marked “RETURNED TO SENDER By Direction of the War Department. Undeliverable as Addressed.” The date she got the letter back is unknown.
Notes:
- Dad was Carroll Johnson Farrar, Sr. He was very ill and bedridden.
- Martha was Martha Ann Farrar, the Farrar’s seventh child and seventeen years old.
- Gene was Harold Eugene Farrar, the Farrar’s youngest son and only thirteen years old.
- Dot was Dorothy Gertrude Farrar, the Farrar’s fourth child. In January 1945, Dot had been married for eight years to Hugh Dimmock Cobb and had five children, two of them twins. She would eventually follow in her mother’s footsteps and have nine children of her own. “Demmey” was Dot’s first child, son Hugh Dimmock Cobb, Jr.
- Beverly is Beverly Marie Farrar, the youngest of the Farrar’s nine children, and the only one still living. Beverly shared her mother’s birthdate and turned eight in January of 1945, the same day her mother turned fifty-five.
© Cindy Farrar Bryan and The Arrowhead Club, 2014
First Correspondence from Mrs. Peluso
Sebastiano Joseph Peluso, Radio Operator/Gunner for the Buslee Crew
Mrs. Antonetta Peluso was the mother of the Buslee crew’s radio operator/gunner, Sebastiano Joseph Peluso, aboard the Lead Banana on September 28, 1944. Both she and her husband, Joseph, were born in Italy and had immigrated to the United States. Sebastiano, better known as Yano to the family, and his older sisters were born in New York. Sebastiano was the youngest, born July 8, 1924. Sister Sala or Sarah (different sources report different names) was nine years older, and Jennie or Jean (different sources report different names) was seven years older than Sebastiano. During the war, the Pelusos lived in Brooklyn, New York.
January 12, 1945
2963 West 24th Street
Brooklyn, 24, New YorkMy Dear Mrs. Farrar,
I received your letter last week, and it makes me happy to know your dear son, George, is safe in a German Prison Camp. Let us hope it won’t be long now, that he will be home once again.
As yet I have not received any information concerning my son Sebastiano. I am waiting patiently for news that will lighten the heavy burden in my heart.
I was deeply sorry to read about 1st. Lt. William A. Henson II. Mr. Carey S. Stearns has also received the same news about his son 1st Lt. Robert S. Stearns. I am praying that the German Government made a mistake in the reports Mrs. Henson and Mr. Stearns received.
Mrs. Farrar, I wish you all the Luck in the world in your dear son’s safety. I will inform you if I get news about my son.
Sincerely yours,
Mrs. Antonetta Peluso
© Cindy Farrar Bryan and The Arrowhead Club, 2014
Another Letter from the Stearns
On January 10, 1945, Robert (Bob) Stearns’s mother wrote her second letter to George Edwin (Ed) Farrar’s mother. She had some news from a friend of Bob’s, the pilot of the crew Bob usually flew with. Bob’s friend was Lt. Larkin C. Durdin. Durdin had completed his thirty-five missions on October 6, 1944 and had returned to the states. While he was at Grafton Underwood, he wasn’t allowed to share the information he knew with Bob’s parents, but now that he was out of the service and back at home, he felt compelled to tell them what he knew. Betty Stearns passed this information along to Raleigh Mae Farrar and probably to other parents of the boys on Lead Banana on September 28, 1944.
January 10, 1945
Lapine, OregonDear Mrs. Farrar:
Thank you for your very kind letter and the clipping about Lt. Henson. What a fine looking young man he is. I only hope the report is not true which we will know in time.
In our first letter to you we mentioned a friend of our son’s who had written us that he “felt they were safe.” He is Capt. Durdin and at home at Horn Lake, Miss. at present, and as his letter received yesterday is of the greatest interest to all of us I’ll quote the part about what happened to our boys plane.
“I couldn’t tell you about what happened while I was over-seas but I’ll tell you now from the first. I had started flying lead but Bob wasn’t checked out as lead so he went to school, had finished and was flying deputy lead. You fly deputy a few times then start leading.
Henson was Navigator on the crew Bob was flying with. His plane was cut in half over the target by another plane that was hit. Both planes went down. The fighter command reported that nine chutes came from the plane Bob was in.
I wasn’t on that mission because I had flown several straight and was grounded that day. I heard that one member of the crew was P. W. I don’t know who it was. All this was my reason and hopes he was safe.”
These are his words copied from his letter as so often in repeating things the true meaning is lost. It is your son who he refers to as P. W. How wonderful that he is alive even tho a prisoner. A year ago that would have been terrible news to me but what I wouldn’t give to hear Bobby was with him.
I hope you hear from him soon. Of course he can tell you very little but just to see his writing again will mean everything. From Capt. Durdin’s letter we feel some of the others will be heard from in time and we aren’t giving up hopes but that our Bobby will be among them.
While we are waiting for that to happen we must show some of the same courage our boys did in taking the War right to Hitler’s doorstep. As I have never been too air-minded, that, to me, took the greatest bravery.
If you hear anything from your son please let us know.
Did Mrs. Henson write you? Her report is practically the same as Lt. Durdin’s.
Very Sincerely,
Mrs. Carey Stearns
I’m not sure if Mrs. Stearns was referring to William A. Henson’s wife or mother as Mrs. Henson. As the Hensons lived in the Atlanta area near the Farrars, they must have exchanged phone calls rather than letters, so I do not have a record of what Mrs. Henson wrote or who her source of information might have been.
This is the first time the families were told that the plane went down due to a mid-air collision rather than being hit by enemy anti-aircraft fire.
The report that nine parachutes were spotted is not backed up by any official reports. Both Missing Air Crew Reports, MACR9366 and MACR9753, report that “no chutes were seen to emerge.”
© Cindy Farrar Bryan and The Arrowhead Club, 2014
A Letter from Georgia’s Governor Ellis Arnall
On January 8, 1945, the Governor of the state of Georgia, Ellis Arnall, also wrote to George Edwin Farrar’s family.
© Cindy Farrar Bryan and The Arrowhead Club, 2014
The Arrowhead Club 