An amazing story, Stephen -- thanks for sharing it with us.
And my jaw about dropped when you opened with your dad's B-17 experiences over Germany.
My dad was a staff sergeant and tailgunner aboard a B-17, making the same sorts of bombing runs, from his 463rd Bombardment Group's base in Foggia, Italy. But he was far more fortunate than your dad; the crew of The Purple Heart Kid completed their allotted missions without major casualties, though with plenty of drama.
Flak blew off the protective cowling around Dad's gun position once and jammed his oxygen mask; he had to break it off and breathe through the hose all the way back to base.
Although not noticeably scarred or nearly as traumatized by his World War II duty as your POW father, Dad has areas of discussion that remain off-limits to this day, too.
Like so many others of their generation, he came home, married Mom, had seven kids, built a life and was the sole provider all through our childhood and adolescent years. It was what they did, no questions asked -- just like the GI's and airmen and sailors that they were as teens and 20-somethings. I cannot imagine today going through what they went through.
I was up for the Vietnam draft, with a low lottery number, when bum knees made me 4F. It was an awful rite of passage deferred. It hurts now to see it revisited upon so many young people in the present misadventure of the clueless and cocky cowboys at the head of our government who squandered global goodwill and are wasting billions of dollars and thousands of lives. We never seem to learn, do we?