Part II

Part II

When We last left Wayne & Norma, they had just gotten married at Lackland Air Base in San Antonio, TX before Wayne started officer training school.
The Church on the Base at San Antonio that My grandparents, Wayne & Norma, were married in is pictured above. The week after their wedding my Grandad, Wayne, started officer training. He said it was pretty rigid and you had to do everything by the book, salute every officer, make your bed, etc. After nine weeks of ground training he finally got to fly in the afternoons for flight school.
After officer training he was sent to Garden City, Kansas for Basic Flight training. He learned about weather, and navigation. On their air field they had planes coming in from both sides of the run way, one side landed and one side took off. Wayne got in the wrong lane while landing during one of his first training flights and his instructor got on to him and gave him a really hard time about it from then on.
After logging in 7 or 8 hours of flight training he got to fly his first solo flight. When his flight instructor finally told him he was ready for his first solo fight he said, "Well Wayne, You're probably going to kill yourself, but go ahead and take off." This was pretty funny because Granddad was actually a really good pilotAfter nine weeks he went to Altus, Oklahoma for Advanced Training and after graduating from Advanced Training he got his 2nd Lt. Bars and Pilot Wings.
He stayed in Altus for a month, with Norma and Ronnie, as a Advanced Training Instructor and was then sent to Sioux City Iowa to join a crew as Co-Pilot for a B-17 bomber squad, to prepare to go overseas.
Above is his flight crew. The same crew he flew with throughout all of his bombing missions over Germany.
In a letter to home after a short visit home before going overseas Wayne Wrote...

Sioux City Iowa July 16th 1944

Dearest Mother & All
Well we are back home and all settled down again. We got out last night and hunted for another apartment we found one for $10 a week that wasn't bad at all. It may be a little hot but I think we can put up with a little heat for that much difference in the rent.
We can make our car payment almost with the difference in rent.
Well I went to the hospital and let the doc's examine me. They sill didn't put me back on flying but they surely will pretty soon.
I think we will send for Ronnie's little bed now that we have a car to haul it around.
Old Ronnie stood the trip just fine. We managed to cross most of the hot country at night, but still the 2nd day was plenty hot.
Those tires on our Ford sure stood up good. We didn't have a flat all the way and those roads, in places, were plenty rough.
I was sure sleepy when we got here and so was Norma, we hadn't slept but a hour now and then since we started. We have sure caught up on our sleep since we have been here though.
Today (Sunday) I slept until noon.
It sure seems kindly lonesome just us three again after being with you all.
Well, I better close for now.
Our new address will be 1022 Virginia S. Sioux city.
With all our Love,
Wayne Norma & Ronnie
P.S. Dad, we got home on less than a 100 gals of gas. I had almost 40 gals left out of the 130 allowed me.

Well that's all for today. Come back for Part III, Wayne finally goes overseas to fight WWII and Leaves Norma & Ronnie.

WWII Part I

For those four or five of you who read my blog, I'd like to continue to share my family history with you. You'll remember that I'm making a scrap book for my grandfather that is going to include all his letters from home, all his paperwork from the war, and all the other photos and mementos he kept. I'm going to also write a story of his life during the war so generations to come can remember all the stories he's entertained me with through the years. This is Part 1.

Part 1.


December 7 1941 is a day that everyone remembers well. The day that Pearl Harbor was bombed. Four days later Hitler declared war on the US which sent an unprepared United States into war.

Just a year Earlier Wayne Treadway had graduated from High School and had been working odd and end jobs just trying to make a little cash in the small town of Booneville Arkansas. In 1942 At age 18 he did like so many other Americans did during this time, went to work in California in hopes to help in the war effort. Wayne started work at Consolidated Aircraft building the B-24 Liberators, which were bomber planes which still hold the record as the most produced planes in the US.

Shortly after working at Consolidated Aircraft Wayne decided it was his duty to join the war efforts in a more productive way than just building bomber planes, he wanted to fly them! As he resigned they told him he didn't have to go to war, he was deferred from the draft because he was building the planes, but he really thought he could do more to help his country than just build the planes. He was brave and he knew God would use him more productively.

On November 17, 1942 he enlisted in Rosecrans in California at the young age of 19. Although his desire was to be a pilot when he signed up for the cadet program in the Air Force they didn't have any immediate openings so he was sent to Boot camp in Phoenix AZ and then to Airplane Mechanic school in Shepardfield TX where the "sun shined and it would snow at the same time." The weather was awful.

After four months he was called up to Aviation Cadet School In San Antonio Texas. There Wayne called up his Sweetheart of two years, Norma Lacy and ask her to marry him. He was given a week long furlough and on May 11th, 1943 they were married at the chapel in San Antonio on the base in a traditional military wedding, gun salute and all. Nine months later, Norma would have their first son, Ronald Wayne, (Ronnie)

A few years earlier when Norma first saw Wayne she couldn't believe how good looking he was, unknown to her, he couldn't believe how good looking she was. He finally got up the nerve and invited her out for a coke one night and she couldn't believe out of all the pretty girls in town, that he had picked her. It was love from there on out. They are now working on their 66th year of marriage as happy as ever. She can't walk and he can't see but the love they have for each other is still strong and is obvious when you're around them and hear them flirt and joke with each other.

Check back in for Part 2 in a few days.