A Sweet Love Poem to a Flyer

But who was Flo’s intended recipient?

My Mother and Audie Murphy Ch. 101

This poem, written on a small slip of paper, fell out of Flo’s album, and I can’t be sure where she meant to place it. I believe she wrote it herself: she made a correction in the text, and I could find no reference to it anywhere else. The poem is addressed to a flyer, yet none of her Third Division friends–nor her fiancé–were flyers. So who was she writing to? I found one possible clue in a letter she wrote to her sister Ruth in August 1944:

“When I returned from Sorrento, Ruth, I found some tragic news awaiting me. A letter I had written Johnny on July 19 was returned to me and on the envelope in red ink was written “accidentally killed in training flight July 15, 1944 near NY.” I simply can’t believe he is dead – he was so alive and so anxious to get over here and do his part. He had had nothing but bad luck since getting into the air Corps. His last letter told me he was just recuperating from pneumonia – common due to flying in sub zero altitudes. It is easier to “take” over here than it would have been at home because you develop a different philosophy, but it is hard nevertheless. His poor mother – both sons killed in airplanes!”

The poem implies that Johnny was more than just a friend. But Flo never told me about him and I can find no other reference to him in her papers. The poem must have been enclosed in her returned letter.