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More and more, as I age (Oops! One arm just fell off!) the more I appreciate Thanksgiving.

We forget sometimes that it’s a uniquely American holiday, first declared by my foremost hero, Abraham Lincoln.

When I wrote a book about local World War II aviators, I found dozens of heroes. Most of them were Eighth Air Force fliers, stationed in England.

These photos show some of those Yanks. One teaches British war orphans about baseball.

Joseph Sleeping Bear, on the left, helps to serve a Thanksgiving meal to British kids.

Two photos show a grander Thanksgiving celebration, with Army Air Forces officers in conversation with their little guests.

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For British children, Thanksgiving was an impossible holiday. Thanks to the U-boat campaign, the British had been going hungry for years.

I’ve told the story before because I’m so touched by it. My father, an Army officer, was kind of “adopted” by a family in London–a common occurrence–and when he brought them a bag of California oranges in the summer of 1944, the family’s mother burst into tears. Her family hadn’s seen fresh oranges since 1939.

What the Yanks brought was their brashness, their loudness, and their determination to romance English girls–the elder sisters of children like these. So they left behind Anglo-American babies.

But they left behind their good will, offered in seemingly endless Hersey bars and spearmint gum. Their rough kindness remains vivid in the memories of children, now in old age, who will never forget the Americans.

An American soldier, among those marshaling for D-Day in southern England, finds time for a little jump rope.
Yanks and “Freckles,” the little Dorset girl who befriended them.

There’s proof of that remembering. The stained-glass window is from a church near a wartime airfield, RAF Alconbury, from which at least three Arroyo Grande airmen, B-17 crewmen, flew.

The left panel depicts the Risen Christ. In the right panel, looking up at Jesus, is a Yank airman.

I keep writing about this generation, stupidly condemned by prewar sociologists as self-centered and pleasure-seeking, because I loved my parents so much, and because the war brought out in these Americans the generosity that I think is a fundamental American trait.

It’s a trait that has been nearly destroyed in the last year.

Picture this about the impact we had in England: On nearly every heavy bomber mission taking off from nearly every American airfield in England, little schoolchildren would gather to line the airfield’s perimeter fence.

They were there to wave goodbye to their Yanks.

Addenda: This kind comment appeared in he original Facebook post of this essay.


Stanford history professor David M. Kennedy published the book Freedom from Fear, about America in depression and war. It won the Pulitzer Prize.


I took a weeklong class from Kennedy, along with thirty history teachers from all over America, at Stanford in 2004. It was one of the great experiences of my life: Kennedy was warm and engaging, answered questions with both brilliance and respect, and his admiration for the Americans he’d written about was obvious. My admiration for Kennedy will remain with me always.