A collection of more than 100 love letters penned by an American pilot stationed in Suffolk during the Second World War and sent to his new wife back in the States is up for sale this Valentine's Day.
J. Andrew Smith, Jr, a pilot from Goldsboro, North Carolina, flew the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress as part of the Eighth Air Force’s strategic bombing campaign and was primarily based out of Bury St Edmunds.
Smith came to the UK in the summer of 1944 and flew in 35 missions all over Germany, leaving behind his wife Hilda who was pregnant with their first child.
Now, some 115 of his love letters to Hilda, in which he wrote of their relationship, their unborn daughter, the dangers he faced on his missions and life at the Bury St Edmunds camp, are up for sale with Pennsylvania-based Raab Collection listed at $7,800.
The archive is complete with a photo of Hilda, which Smith kept with him during his missions, as well as a dollar bill which he separated at the start of his missions and gave half to a friend, and which was united upon their joint survival.
It also includes his signed military identification card, an official list of his operational missions, and a photocopy of a manuscript map of the military arrangement at Station 468, in Bury St Edmunds.
In one letter, Smith wrote: "You are another world, a world that is sweet and beautiful, not what I am living in now."
In another he penned: "I’ll surely be glad when this war is over. Damn won’t it be wonderful nothing to worry about except the rent and of course keeping the baby from crying at night. I just want to tell you over and over again that I love you so much."
Nathan Raab, president of The Raab Collection, said: "This is a substantial archive, with more than a hundred letters, telegrams, photos, and other pieces of ephemera, that truly brings us into the mind of that B-17 pilot.
"In one sense, it’s a very intimate portrait, and, in another, it offers a window into the lives of all World War II soldiers."
The archive is listed with Raab Collection for $7,800.
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