Happy Birthday, Soldier

My father, Robert Daniel Kruidenier, had cancer not taken his life prematurely, would have been 95 years old this past Wednesday, August 12. Pausing today to honor his memory, especially for my children who didn't get to know him very well. I found this picture online a couple years ago taken somewhere in China in the CBI Theatre (China-Burma-India) in WW II -- members of the 29th Fighter Squadron -- American pilots who were training Chinese pilots to fight against the invading Japanese. (Several of the men in this picture are Chinese.) He came home with no pictures of that period of his life and am thankful that someone had posted this one online. He did make it home with his A-1 military issue flight jacket, worn in this picture, which we still have. The P-40 Tomahawk in the right rear was the plane he flew; we do have pictures of him in other settings strapped into this workhorse. He is in this picture only because he survived the sinking of the British troop transport ship he was on in the Mediterranean, the H.M.T. Rhona, as he made his way to the CBI Theatre. He later worked closely at N.A.S.A. with the German scientist who developed the plane-mounted torpedo used to sink the Rhona. That sinking was the first successful deployment of the torpedo in the war, a fact that the U.S. military kept quiet since they didn't want to advertise the success of this new German weapon. Daddy and the German munitions engineer had a good (nervous) laugh about the ironies of life and war many years later.

Thanks for your service, Daddy -- wish you'd lived longer. Happy 95th anyway. (Daddy is standing, back row, fourth from the left. If you click on the picture you can see a bit larger version.)