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Joseph Flowers working on WWII papers 2009-11-20 - Greensburg ST, Columbia, KY - Photo by Ed Waggener. Joseph Flowers is carefully cataloguing the letters his late father, Alfred Flowers, wrote home from World War II. The letters comprise one of the most impressive stories of heroism of the War. Alfred Flowers was a belly gunner on 32 B-27 bombing runs, when the very assignment, one of the highest risk positions of the war, was considered almost a death warrant. Joseph Flowers said his dad is actually credited with 50 missions, based on a point system which considered the danger level of the missions. On the first few missions, the younger Flowerssaid, his Dad told him he looked German flak straight on, "But later he wrote that he shut his eyes so he wouldn't see it." He tried not to remember those times after the war, Joseph said. "But he told us before he died that he had nightmares about that time, which made him realize just how scared he was then." That's only a tiny part of the story, but Mr. Flowers hopes to organize all the photos and letters into a family book, or, perhaps into research material for his late mother's beloved Adair County Public Library. Then, maybe, when he gets the time, he might publish a book of this remarkable Adair Countian's life. Permalink | Comments?

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