Family finds WWII POW diary in personal effects of late Air Force officer from Bellevue
Steve Liewer Aug 30, 2020 Updated Aug 30, 2020
On his first birthday spent as a POW in Nazi-occupied Romania, Army Air Corps Capt. Clay Ferguson penned a few thoughts on growing older.
“Today I am 24 years old,†he wrote in a prison diary dated Dec. 27, 1943. “I never thought I would live to be so old. It’s hard to believe that I am approaching middle age. I suppose a man’s life goes pretty fast from now on.â€
There are reasons Ferguson may have felt like an old man. Less than four months earlier, the B-24 bomber on which he served as navigator, The Boomerang, was shot down during a daring raid on the Ploesti oil fields in Romania. All 11 crew members survived and were taken prisoner, but Ferguson suffered severe injuries.
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