JFamily Weekly March 6, mo
A V ,
Her airman-husband was shot down
18 months ago over Russia
and never Heard from since;
now, as Mr. Eisenhower prepares to visit the U.S.S.Rf she pleads:
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Help we
et il Husband
By MRS. JAMES E. FERGUSON, JR. as told to Mary Pankowski
My husband is an American airman, missing in
action. He was shot down by the Russians Sept.
2, 1958. No word has ever been received from him.
I don't know where he is, or if he is even alive. "
For more than a year, I have known only the
agony of waiting. Even hope has been denied me
in recent months. But maybe I have reason now
to hope again. In June, President Eisenhower will
visit Russia. It's a remote hope, but possibly he
will be able to learn what the Russians did with
my husband.
I must not hope too much, though. When Pre
mier Khrushchev visited Washington last year, the
President personally inquired about the fate of Jim
and four of his crew also missing.' The President
later wrote me:
"To my deep regret Mr. Khrushchev's reply has
failed once again to provide any new information.
... In spite of this I assure you that the govern
ment of the United States will continue to do every
thing that can be done to determine the fate of
those missing men."
Perhaps, then, there still is reason to hope. Per
haps in June something will happen to end my
agonized waiting. .
It is not easy to be neither wife nor widow. I
have two children to raise three-year-old Debbie
Ann and one-year-old Keith, who was born after
his father vanished in a remote region near the
Russian-Turkish border. What faces us in this in
between world we live in? How will endless wait
ing affect us? How will it affect Jim when he
returns? And what if he doesn't return?
I do not think I am presumptuous to hope that
. the world leaders will consider how important these j
questions are to one woman and her children. They
.are not great summit questions; yet they fill our
lives. At least I must hope that Mr. Khrushchev and
Mr. Eisenhower will take time from complex ques-
tions to try to answer my simple ones.
Jim's and my story began on a happier note in
March, 1958, when he arranged for us to join him
overseas. We rented a small house in a German
village not far from Frankfurt and lived pretty
much like any other couple except Jim's job was
flying over the most dangerous air routes in Europe.
On Sept 2 that year, I was alone with my little
girl , waiting for Jim to return from a routine flight
to Turkey. In the afternoon, I was putting on water
for some tea when a blue Air Force car pulled up
in front of our house. Another followed. Two offi
cers, grim and silent, came up to our door. My heart
skipped, I recall, but I convinced myself this was
nothing to worry about
One of the officers was Captain Tarbucks, Jim's
commanding officer. The other was introduced as
Major Swanson from the air base at Frankfurt "I
have some-news for you," the major said softly,
and I knew this was the news every flier's wife
dreads. "Why don't you sit down?"
"What's happened to Jim?" I insisted.
' They had little information. Jim had been aboard
an unarmed transport returning to Adana, Turkey.
The plane and its 11 crew members were missing.
Beyond that, they knew nothing. When any further
news came in, they would let me know.
They stayed about 10 minutes. They gave me a
phone number to call and asked if I had enough
money. They asked if there was anything they could
do for me. Then they left
For minutes, I sat "stunned and helpless. Then
suddenly I grabbed my little girl and ran out
the door into, the narrow street, stumbling on the
rough pavement Joyce, a neighbor girl of my own
Debbie, I gasped out the horrible news.
Joyce helped me back to my house, and, .some
how, I finished making the tea. An hour later, I had
- gained control of myself and. accepted the new:
. After all, Jim was only "missing." There-was hope.
He would come back to us, I was sure.
We had just finished dinner with Joyce that night
when Sergeant Burgeron from Jim's outfit drove up.
"You've got to come to the base, Rita," he said.
"Its no good for you to be out here alone."
I didn't want to go. The house held all that Jim
and I had built together. '
"IH be okay," I said.
"There's more to it than you," he replied. "You're
five" months pregnant Suppose- the baby came
early? There's Debbie to think about, too. You'll
be better off at the base, and when any news comes
you'll get it faster."
I protested that I didn't know anyone at the base.
How could I move in with strangers?
. "It's all arranged," he said. "You're to stay at
Sergeant Kresge's."
Sergeant Kresge was on the ball team with Jim.
I had met him a few times. I had never met his
' wife. I looked at Deborah. Without understanding
what had happened, she had sensed this alien feel
ing that had come into her home. It would be bet
ter for her elsewhere.
- 'Til go," I said.
-r I gathered-up-theiewthirtgs we would need for
the night The sergeant said we could come out the
next day to get anything else we needed.
. Margaret ..Kresge . .welcomed us . as if she had
known us all her life.. An only child, she had never .
been around babies very much. Stanley, their son,
was four months old and teething. We talked babies.
We fed babies. We washed babies. I kept as busy as
I could. And I waited.
For 10 days there was no news. Then, on Satur
day morning, as I was dressing Debbie, Captain
Tarbucks came to the house with a medical officer.
They said Russia had found the plane and reported
ail-aboard dead.
Still holding Debbie, I walked into the bedroom
s.. and collapsed on the bed. I had never let myself
cry before now I couldn't stop. There was no hope
after alL My husband was dead.
Family Weekly. March 6. 1960
-Tamay WeefclyT March 6. 1960