World War II letters bring Burnet woman’s uncle to life

DANIEL CLIFTON • PICAYUNE EDITOR

BURNET — When Belinda Whitworth pulled the box from her mother’s closet, she knew who the letters inside were from, but it was only as she read each handwritten one — dated January 1942 through January 1944 — did she come to know the man who wrote them.

“Oh, no, I never met him,” Whitworth said. “But reading these letters, I really got a sense of who he was. And not just who he was, but what he went through during training and even through the war.”

Her uncle Glenn N. Hodges penned each of the letters to his mother (Whitworth’s grandmother), who lived in Junction. Hodges, a graduate of Junction High School in 1938, was one of the many young men who signed up to serve during World War II, and he was one of the thousands who never returned. He was the youngest child of James and Sarah Hodges.

“He wanted to be a pilot, but he didn’t make it through pilot school, so he went to bombardier training,” Whitworth said.

Whitworth’s initial encounter with the letters led her to build a college project around her uncle’s epistles and stories. Now, she wants to share the letters with others.

“I think it’s important to show these were men with real lives,” she said. “When I read his letters, you can read where he was all excited about doing what he was doing and then other times when he just sounded bored. I think we forget these were men who had ups and downs.”

The Picayune will be printing one or two of Hodges’ letters home through April 23 to lead up to the 2014 Bluebonnet Air Show on April 26 at Kate Craddick Field in Burnet. Whitworth hopes, through the letters, people will remember those who served in World War II but also see them as the men and women they were, doing something they felt they needed to do.

Her uncle wasn’t a superhero but a man looking to make it in life. After graduating from Junction High School, he went to Austin, where he worked for the IRS. But when World War II broke out, he signed up to fight.

“I think so many of his friends were signing up, he got caught up in it and did, too,” Whitworth said.

Bombardier school led him to the exciting town of, well, Midland. But his training took him to several other bases across the country including in Oklahoma, about which Hodges didn’t have much good to say. In one letter, he recounted enduring so many tornado sirens throughout the night that it was nearly impossible to sleep.

Eventually, Hodges headed overseas, where he served as a bombardier in the B-17 Flying Fortress. He was attached to the 429th Squadron of the 2nd Bombing Group. The bombers and crews participated in long-range missions in the Mediterranean theater, including North Africa and Italy. In December 1943, the squadron moved to Foggia, Italy, where members continued punishing the Axis enemies.

On Jan. 24, 1944, the squadron headed for Sofia, Bulgaria, for a bombing run. But when 37 of the aircraft arrived on target, the crews found it impossible to bomb and headed for a secondary target. About 80 to 100 miles beyond Sofia, the group turned for home but encountered heavy cloud formations.

The two waves of bombers took slightly different approaches with one going through a hole in the cloud formations and the other ditching their bombs and climbing to get above the clouds. Eventually, the first wave of bombers also ditched their bombs.

But enemy aircraft spotted the group of bombers and attacked.

During the attack, a 20mm shell struck 2nd Lt. Hodges’ aircraft, killing him. He was the only one killed on the run, but six others were injured.

Hodges was buried in a cemetery in Bari, Italy, where he remains. Whitworth said one of Hodges’ brothers has visited his grave.

Among the other memorabilia and items she found in her mother’s home is the original Western Union telegraph Whitworth’s grandparents received that notified them of their son’s death. He was the youngest of the couple’s four children.

Overall, Whitworth has more than 80 letters Hodges wrote home over the two-year period.

“The letters make him so much more real,” Whitworth said.

When she pitched the idea of building a project around the letters to her college professor many years ago, Whitworth pointed out how significant these pieces of personal items can teach history.

“I learned more about World War II in this box of letters than I ever learned on TV or many other places,” she said.

Now, others can as well.

daniel@thepicayune.com