Love, letters and learning during World War II; Spring Grove man publishes ‘Attlebridge Letters Home’

Art Peterson never knew his father, at 78 comes to know him

A photograph of Art Peterson; his mother, Marie; father, U.S. Army Air Forces Staff Sgt. Robert E. Peterson; and half brother, Bobby, lays on a letter his father wrote to his mother during World War II. Peterson, a retired journalist, wrote a book based on the letters.

“My dear Marie” or “My darling” begin many of the letters Robert E. Peterson Sr. wrote during the 1940s to Marie, the woman he met, fell in love with and then quickly married before going off to serve in World War II.

The letters, often ending with “missing you” and “loving you always” and full of Peterson’s plans for after the war, drive “Attlebridge Letters Home,” a recently published book written by the couples’ son, Art Peterson, 78, of Spring Grove.

The book, completed in February, is a love story of a man yearning to be reunited with his wife and two young sons, with plans of moving south to Arkansas or Texas where he would work as an electrician and raise their family, weaved between passages of war history and heartache.

But the book also is about the younger Peterson learning who his father was.

Peterson, a former reporter for the Lake-County News-Sun, was just 14 months old when his father died in the war.

The 399-page, self-published book tells the story of the life of the Petersons, from August 1941, when the couple first met at the Paradise Ballroom, a dance hall in Chicago, through the time of U.S. Army Air Forces Staff Sgt. Robert E. Peterson’s death in 1945. He was 29.

Peterson’s B-24 Black Cat bomber – the last American bomber shot down over Germany during WWII – was struck by enemy fire on April 21, 1945, just two weeks before the end of the war.

Art Peterson holds one of the letters his father, U.S. Army Air Forces Staff Sgt. Robert E. Peterson, wrote to his mother, Marie, during World War II, on Nov. 9, 2022, at his home in Spring Grove. Peterson, a retired journalist, wrote a book based on the letters.

Peterson also details the aftermath, including his mother’s struggle to learn the truth of her husband’s death and later becoming a founding member of the Chicago Chapter of the Gold Star Wives of America. He also details his journey to visit his father’s gravesite in the Lorraine American Cemetery and Memorial at St. Avold, France.

“I wanted to preserve the memory of my parents and family and World War II,” he said.

In memoriam to his father, first edition book proceeds are being contributed to the 466th Bomb Group Heritage Centre Project at the former Attlebridge Airfield near Norwich, England. So far, he has donated $2,306 to the project, built on land near where his father was stationed at the time of his death.

Project manager Paul Hindle, who lives about 20 minutes from the airfield where the visitors’ center is located, said the donations have “boosted” their funds for purchasing building materials for the project. In an email, Hindle said he first met Peterson in 2014 when he visited the former airfield and walked upon the same ground where his father took off on his final flight.

Hindle thanked Peterson for the donations and described the book in the email as “a heartbreaking love story of two young people caught up in WW2.”

Peterson said writing the book was “emotionally challenging [and] heartwarming,” but it provided “a window to learning about” his father.

“(One regret I have) is just having this big hole in my soul that a father usually fills for their kids,” Peterson said. “I’ve just got history and memories.”

A photograph in a binder of Art Peterson’s father, U.S. Army Air Forces Staff Sgt. Robert E. Peterson. Art Peterson, a retired journalist, wrote a book based on the letters his father wrote to his mother during World War II.

Peterson learned how similar he and his father are and the strength of love they feel for their families. He learned that unlike himself, his father loved to dance and was a good dancer.

He learned how they were similar in decisions they each had made in their lives, “both good and bad.”

Peterson was told his father spent a total of five days with him as a newborn. He has no memory of being with the man who wrote in letters to Marie after his birth of the joy he felt and the desire to be home, raising him and his older brother. He wrote that he looked forward to the days when they could go hunting and fishing together.

The seed for a book was planted about 50 years ago, when Peterson said his mother gave him a cardboard box from her closet filled with the letters and other documents. She died in 2011 at the age of 99.

Though a longtime newspaper reporter who had written many stories, Peterson said he could not quite bring himself to absorbing the contents of the box and writing his own story.

So again, the box was tucked away until the 1990s when author Thomas Childers called. He was working on a book about his father’s crew. Peterson then began going through the box and spent “most of that night” reading the letters. But he again put the box away. Childers’ book “Wings of Morning” was released in 1995.

Last year, Peterson decided it was time.

The box included letters his father wrote shortly after meeting then Marie Dragisic, referring to his new girlfriend as his “queen sunshine.” It also included the Western Union telegram dated May 28, 1945, informing the young mother that her husband, who she initially was told weeks earlier was missing in action, had been killed in action.

The Farrington crew served during World War II in the Second Air Division 466th Bomb Group at the Attlebridge Army Airforce base. Photo taken March 26, 1945. Nine members of 11 of this crew, including waist gunner Robert E. Peterson Sr. (front row, first person), died April 21, 1945 after being shot down by enemy fire flying near Regensburg, Germany.

On his last flight, Peterson, a waist gunner, was one of 11 men flying in the Black Cat near Regensburg in a mission to destroy a small train track bridge. Officials believed Adolf Hitler, who later committed suicide, was planning to escape on that track.

Nine crew members of the Second Air Division 466th Bomb Group died that day, including Peterson. Two were captured and released about two weeks later when the war ended. One of those men, Al Seraydarian, wrote to Marie detailing what he recalled from the fatal flight. That sad letter is part of the book as well.

Peterson’s wife, Sandra, said she watched her husband go through a lot of emotion over the years when it came to the box of letters. Many times he would attempt to get a book started, but would get upset and eventually put it back away.

“I was pleased to see that he did finish it,” Sandra Peterson said.

He had “a lot of different emotions” going through the writing process, she said. “His emotions would change depending on what he was doing with it.”

Art Peterson said completing the book brings “a sigh of relief” and a “soul-satisfying joy.”

“The book expands the impact of the war beyond the battlefield and into the lives of soldiers’ families before during and after the war,” Peterson said. “Hopefully, citizens and their leaders can better understand and accept what a commitment to war fully requires.”

The $45 book is available by emailing Peterson at Attlebridgelettershome@outlook.com.