My Darling Boys: A Family at War, 1941–1947 by Fred H. Allison. University of North Texas Press, 2024, 336 pp.
My Darling Boys is the story of three brothers—Harold Allison, Oscar Allison, and Wiley Grizzle Jr.—who served in World War II and how their family dealt with their service. To bring the story to life, author Fred Allison—the son of Harold—pulls from the letters the brothers sent home to their family, primarily those between their mother, Ollie, and Wiley Jr. The author begins by describing the Allison brothers’ early childhood, writing about his grandfather’s relocation from Texas to New Mexico and about his other jobs to provide for his family.
The book takes an initial sad turn as the author transitions into a discussion about a family left behind when the Allison patriarch passes away. With three boys to provide for and raise, Ollie then later remarried to Wiley Grizzle. As the author details, his father and uncles—now including Wiley Jr.—established their hard work ethic by helping the senior Wiley with raising livestock, farming, and drilling wells.
After introducing the family, the book then divides the story between each of the three sons who served in World War II. The author begins by describing how his father and his uncle Oscar joined the Civilian Pilot Training Program, which laid the foundation for their later transition into the Army Air Corps for their initial training. What makes the story come to life is the usage of Oscar’s personal memoir, which he handwrote in 1973. Along with the letters shared between the brothers and their mother—who often referred to them as her “darlings,” hence the book’s title—and siblings, Allison uses passages from the memoir “quoted at length and verbatim.” The memoir is, as he describes, “central to the story, mainly because it is well written and tells [Oscar’s] story beginning to end in an engaging and compelling manner” (vi).
In describing Harold and Wiley’s training as pilots, the author gives many details and insights into the way the training for the Air Corps was conducted in the early days of the war. The letters that Wiley wrote offer more than just a description of his daily routine but also bring a first-person perspective into what the trainees went through to become Air Corps pilots.
Allison then returns to Oscar, who after completing his Air Corps training was assigned to fly B-24 bombers as a top turret gunner and flight engineer. Allison keeps the reader engaged by discussing the details of Oscar’s missions in Europe, finishing with his last flight over Austria. After being shot down over Regensburg, Germany, Oscar and his crew survived their bail out only to become prisoners of war (POW). Oscar’s capture and his experiences as a POW are provided in vivid detail, including what was involved in the movement of the detainees as the Allied forces came into German territory and how the inspections by the International Red Cross revealed the mistreatment of the Allied POWs and the disturbing circumstances they endured.
While Oscar was interned in the POW camp, Harold and Wiley continued their advanced flight training in bombers and fighters. The author discusses the different aircraft Wiley flew, his accomplishments along the way to become fully qualified, and the culmination of his training, which ends with him being designated as a fighter pilot. He also describes his father’s flight training in Columbia, South Carolina. There, Harold began as a pilot for B-25 bombers, but due to a physical condition, he was not allowed to fly at the time. He later transitioned to B-17 bombers. Ultimately, however, the war ended just as he completed his training and he never deployed to combat, much to his dismay.
As the story of World War II and the role of the Allison-Grizzle brothers concludes, Allison turns to Wiley and the fighter missions he flew in Europe, showing how the air war changed as the Allies gained control of the airspace over Germany. Allison describes how the fighter pilots prepared for their combat missions with weather briefings. Descriptions of the location of the targets bring the reader closer to the preparation involved in missions, including details on the pilot’s formations, routes, and the altitudes at which they flew to protect the bombers.
Allison does well to integrate the letters between Ollie and her sons to demonstrate how the war impacted families on the home front, why service members were willing to fight so far away from home, and how families endured the separation from their loved ones during the war, often experiencing “emotional turmoil, torment, and trauma … as loved ones go into a combat zone.” Key to his narrative is the overarching theme that the brothers “were no heroes” and there “were no Medals of Honor among them,” but they nevertheless represented “average” Americans who were Airmen who “fought honorably and bravely” in World War II (viii).
This book will resonate with those current family members who have relatives serving away from home and give those who have never experienced this separation an understanding of why these service members are willing to endure such hardship for their country. While the author’s personal connections to the three brothers make My Darling Boys particularly poignant and real, this book would be an enjoyable read for anyone interested in World War II and the people who served as well as those they left behind.
Steven M. Guiliani