Sunday
Went to church this morning and enjoyed the services. First time in the present chapel which is well fixed up. One of the congregation had found some orchids on Noumea1 and put them on the altar. Very beautiful.
Wrote letters and went to the line for a little while in the afternoon.
Spent the evening on letters. Answered those I received for the day from Dad, Mom, Bonnie and Guyneth. Bonnie is so good to me about writing and I live from day to day for her letters. Thank God she loves me. Everyone’s so very good to me. Read my Bible lessons and prayers and went to bed.2
Notes & Commentary
1 Noumea, New Caledonia, about 1,250 miles southeast from Stirling Island.
2 Two years earlier, RM3C Jay William Jenkins was a rear gunner on an SBD Dauntless of VB-6 (Bombing Squadron Six) of the USS Enterprise (CV-6). He was among those dive bomber crews from the USS Enterprise who destroyed three Japanese aircraft carriers and disabled a fourth at the Battle of Midway on 4 June 1942. He was among the 176 United States Navy, United States Marine Corps, and United States Army Air Force aircrew killed at the Battle of Midway in achieving victory over the Japanese force. He was the brother of one of Wayne’s sister-in-law’s sister’s husband. The war touched everyone in some way.
Wayne's Journal 
D-Day is coming soon… and he has not the faintest idea it’s coming.
LikeLike
He is, as are so many, a long, long way from Europe.
LikeLike
This is why it will be so much interesting to read his journal following D-Day.
LikeLike
I just found your blog. I was born on this day, two days before D-Day, to an Iowa farmer who’d become a pilot and an Iowa waitress whose five brothers are now featured on the Dallas County Freedom Rock at Minburn, Iowa. All five served. Only two came home. One lost was the copilot on a B-25G off Wewak, New Guinea, November 27, 1943.
LikeLike
The comments left on the entry for June 5, 1944 may be of interest to you. They demonstrate how even years later the events of a single day can affect a family’s life.
LikeLike