Wartime Letters from a WWII Airman

Of the 16 million Americans who volunteered or were drafted into the United States military, nearly 500,000 did not live to witness the celebrations, grand parades, and reunions with family members and loved ones. This immense collective sacrifice is honored today throughout the country, from sprawling national monuments and museums to small plaques in schools and country churches. HNOC is one of many institutions that keeps the memory of these brave souls alive by preserving, safeguarding, and providing access to their papers and personal effects. In observance of the 80th anniversary of V-E Day, HNOC would like to share a few of the thoughts and words of one New Orleanian who did not come home, but whose over 100 letters, cards, and telegrams, containing hopes and dreams for a future he would never live to see, have found a home within our archives.  

Francis Ildefonso Cervantes was born in uptown New Orleans on November 6, 1922, the son and oldest child of Rachel and Francis Dario Cervantes, immigrants from Mexico. Francis’s father worked as a machinist making surgical instruments. The younger Francis would be joined later by two younger sisters, Ninfa and Trinidad. Spanish was the first language in the Cervantes household, and the family attended Westminster Presbyterian Church on St. Charles Avenue. Perhaps influenced by his father’s vocation, the young Cervantes showed an early aptitude for mechanics and engineering, excelling in model making. Cervantes graduated from Fortier High School,* Class of 1940, and was attending Tulane University when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Eager to enlist, Cervantes’s parents convinced him to postpone volunteering until the conclusion of the spring semester. With two years of college education, Cervantes applied for and was accepted into the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) Aviation Cadet program on June 12, 1942. 

After training at the Aviation Cadet Center in San Antonio, Cervantes successfully qualified as a pilot in January 1943. Cervantes excitedly wrote to his mother on January 12, 1943, “This has been the day I have been waiting for. I am a pilot.” Cervantes was then sent to navigator school in San Marcos, Texas, near Austin. It was during his time in Texas that Cervantes, now a second lieutenant, met his future wife, Paula Andrade. Paula was serving as a volunteer hostess at the downtown San Antonio United Service Organization (USO) club for active-duty members of the military, and they bonded over their shared Hispanic heritage. A rapid romance ensued, which saw the couple wed in a small ceremony on Christmas Eve 1943. Breaking the news to his mother in a letter, Cervantes attempts to soften the shock, asking her to see things his way. “I won’t ask you to forgive me because I know I am doing the correct thing,” he writes.    

What followed was a whirlwind of postings for Cervantes as he and his crew trained relentlessly on the B-24 Liberator heavy bomber. After posts in Wyoming, Kansas, Idaho, and Utah, he received his orders for Europe. In the spring of 1944, Cervantes and Paula parted for what would be the final time.  

Cervantes and his crew deployed to the United Kingdom to join the 859th Bomb Squadron, 492nd Bomb Group of the 8th Air Force flying out of the Royal Air Force (RAF) base at North Pickenham in East Anglia. The unit entered combat in May 1944, initially flying daytime strategic bombing raids over central Germany before being redirected to support the June D-Day landings in Normandy, France, with attacks on bridges, railroads, and coastal defenses. In its initial three months of missions, the 492nd suffered the heaviest losses of any individual 8th Air Force Bombardment Group and was withdrawn from combat in August 1944.  

Understanding military censorship, Cervantes does not discuss particulars in his letters, but he does repeatedly mention that he and his crewmates need to fly 50 missions before they can rotate home. That number had been increased from an initial 25 to 30 then to 50, owing to the extremely high casualty rates among bomber crews. Fifty missions was an astonishingly high number, one that few crews ever came close to attaining. Nevertheless, Cervantes insisted to his mother, “Don’t worry about us up here. As long as I can get missions in we can get home much sooner.” 

For their next assignment, Cervantes’s unit fell under the command of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner of the modern-day CIA, flying clandestine missions as part of Operation Carpetbagger. Operating only at night and flying at dangerously low altitudes to avoid enemy radar detection, Carpetbagger units would drop supplies and matériel to resistance groups as well as sometimes insert American agents and saboteurs behind enemy lines. All crews were volunteers and under strict orders to maintain secrecy about the missions. Losses amongst Carpetbagger crews were high. In a letter to his mother, Cervantes states, “[It] looks as if we’ll be pretty busy from here on.” 

Following the liberation of France, Cervantes and his unit were detached and transferred to the 15th Air Force, again flying Carpetbagger missions, now out of Brindisi, Italy, in support of the Partisans fighting against Nazi Germany in Yugoslavia. It was in Italy, in late January of 1945, that Cervantes learned by mail that he was “the papa of a boy,” a son named after him. 

On Friday, February 9, 1945, Cervantes and his entire eight-man crew set out for a mission aboard the B-24 Liberator “Hell’s Warrior” (#42-7563). Less than 10 days after receiving the news of the birth of his son, Cervantes’s aircraft exploded in mid-air over the village of Jablanac on the Adriatic coast, in present-day Croatia. There were no survivors. Cervantes’s family learned of his fate through a Western Union telegram, a communique often described during WWII as the nation’s currency of grief. Cervantes had written to Paula only one day prior, as can be seen from her inscription on the envelope: “Your father’s last letter dated the day before.” He was 22 years old. 

The remains of Cervantes and his crew were quickly recovered. However, as individual remains could not be identified at the time, the crew were interred together at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery, near St. Louis, Missouri. Today, Cervantes’s wife, Paula, is buried nearby. Closer to home, Cervantes is memorialized with a cenotaph alongside his mother and father in Masonic Cemetery No. 2 on City Park Avenue. Among his papers at HNOC is the Purple Heart he received posthumously.

A 2025 estimate places the number of surviving United States WWII veterans at approximately 50,000. Within the next decade, these last remaining veterans will likely be gone. However, insights into the lives and thoughts of these Americans from nearly 90 years ago will remain accessible through the collection and study of personal material such as the papers of Francis Cervantes. Many items that now comprise the Francis Cervantes Collection at HNOC were donated by the son he never knew. Frank D. Cervantes is a retired family doctor based in the San Antonio area.