My Darling Boys is the story of a New Mexico farm family whose three sons were sent to fight in World War II. All flew combat aircraft in the Army Air Forces. In 1973 one of the boys, Oscar Allison, a B-24 top turret gunner and flight engineer, wrote a memoir of his World War II experiences. On a mission to Regensburg, Germany, his bomber, ravaged by German fighters, was shot down. He was captured and spent fifteen months in German stalag prisons. His memoir, the core of this unique book, details his training, combat, and prisoner-of-war experience in a truthful, introspective, and compelling manner. Fred H. Allison, the author and Oscar's nephew, gained access to family letters that supplement Oscar's story and bring to light the experiences of Oscar's brothers. Harold Allison, the author's father, was sidelined from combat as a bomber copilot due to a health condition. The letters also tell of the brother who did not come home, Wiley Grizzle Jr., a P-51 fighter pilot. Wiley's last mission brought his squadron of Mustangs into a pitched battle with German fighters bound for the front to attack American troops. The letters also introduce the boys' family, who fought the battle of the home front on their farm in New Mexico. Allison reveals the burden home folks bore for their boys in combat and then the emotional trauma from the dreaded War Department letters announcing "missing in action" or "killed in action." Allison conducted extensive research in the official records and in secondary sources to give context to the memoir and letters. My Darling Boys brings a new and important aspect to personal accounts of World War II combat, giving the reader a unique blend of first-person military action tied to the home front family.
Fred H. Allison, a retired Marine officer and aviator, served as the US Marine Corps oral historian from 2000 to 2020. He is the editor of We Were Going to Win, or Die There: With the Marines at Guadalcanal, Tarawa, and Saipan by Roy H. Elrod (UNT Press). Allison earned his PhD in military history at Texas Tech University. He lives in Katy, Texas.
"This is a distinctive memoir. Because this work focuses on three brothers at war but also on the home front and what their family experienced, it gives the reader a wider lens through which to view Americans' experiences in the war." - Robert S. Ehlers Jr., author of The Mediterranean Air War: Airpower and Allied Victory in World War II "Allison has provided much context concerning family history, as well as background for significant issues related to WWII. The context provided for the personal letters is nearly always well timed, well placed, and vital to the impact of the letters. The way Allison dealt with the letters related to Oscar's shootdown and imprisonment is to be commended, and the way he introduced the letters related to Wiley's death and subsequent search for answers is quite moving." - Kelly Crager, author of Hell under the Rising Sun: Texan POWs and the Building of the Burma-Thailand Death Railway "Fred Allison shares his family's World War II experiences with the skilled analysis of a professional historian. Based on a surviving uncle's memoire of the war, and the quest to learn of another uncle who never returned, Allison guides us through family letters, interviews, and the history of the period - the "Good War" and its effect on the Homefront. My Darling Boys is a moving and personal insight of those who served, and their families who waited for them to come home." - Gene B. Preuss, public historian, University of Houston-Downtown "The Darling Boys were the quintessential young men of America who went off to fight in World War II. In this very sweet tale, Fred Allison, a preeminent military historian, weaves family legends, memoirs, and war letters together with deep historical and archival research into a compelling narrative of three young Depression-era members of the Allison family as they became combat aviators and served in the European theater. His research is masterful, and the personal narratives are enriching. It is a great story of aerial combat in that war, the travail of those who waited at home, and the role of American families in supplying us with those heroic young warriors. This book is an enjoyable, touching, and first-class read and reminds us of the human costs of war--both for the warriors who go forth into battle and for those who wait for them at home." - Colonel (ret.) Darrel Whitcomb, combat veteran and military historian
