The collection is comprised of letters written and received by Lorraine D. Fahien and Robert E. (Bob) Fischer, dating from 1943 to 1946. Most of the letters date from 1945, during Bob’s service in the U.S. Army Air Force. The letters are arranged chronologically with gaps occurring in December 1943, May through July 1944, February 1945, December 1945 through April 1946, and June through August 1946.

With only one exception, all the letters are written between Lorraine and Bob in which they discuss many issues relating to the military and home front during World War II. Jane Gore, a friend and co-worker of Lorraine’s from International Show Company wrote the final letter in the collection to Lorraine dated September 1946, just after the Fischers’ marriage.

The initial letters in the collection are typical of those written between two acquaintances, with Lorraine asking questions about the U.S. Army Air Force (USAAF) training and classes. She informed him about people he might know. Bob asked about International Shoe Company, where his father also worked, and about mutual friends from Pilgrim Lutheran Church. After Bob returned to the U.S. after flying fifty-one combat missions while stationed in Italy, he and Lorraine started dating. The letters became more frequent, personal, and endearing. After the war ended in August 1945, the couple started discussing future plans. They decided that Bob would return to college at Washington University and planned to wed in the fall of 1946. Throughout the correspondence, the couple maintained a teasing attitude toward another. Bob often enclosed humorous cartoons with his letters.

Lorraine wrote about her family and her visits to their Warrenton farm. Her older brother Ray initially had deferments from the draft, but by January 1945 had joined the Army and was in its Specialized Training Program (ASTP) at Oregon State University (5 Jan 1945). After training, when the war was over, Ray was assigned to the Signal Corps at Fort Leonard Wood (13 Oct 1945). In her letters, Lorraine mentioned several people in the military: Adam J. Schmitz (30 Nov 1943), Wally Mayer (26 Oct 1944), Warren Kemper (26 Oct 1944), “Windy” Eberhardt (26 Oct 1944), Ray Shank (11 June 1945, 10 July 1945), and “Windy” Breeze (30 Sept 1945).

Lorraine kept Bob abreast of her social activities and news on the home front. She went to the movies and to the opera (The Muny) in the summer. Both Lorraine and Bob’s sister, Dorothy, attended Berea meetings and Sunday School teacher meetings. There were other church, Walther League, and family events where Loraine socialized with the Fischers. They attended the Memorial Day parade in St. Louis where they saw images of the German atrocities displayed at the St. Post-Dispatch (30 May 1945). She attended war bond shows (10 July 1945) and worked six days a week at International Shoe until they suspended Saturday work from July to September 1945. Lorraine rarely wrote letters from work, but on one occasion, she typed a letter on adding machine tape to avoid using paper from International Shoe (ca. June 1945). Once they began dating, Lorraine and Bob shared family trees with each other, as they were each confused about all the people they met during his furlough in February 1945 and about whom they each wrote in their letters (4, 6 Apr 1945).

Bob explained a lot about his situation as an officer and navigator in the USAAF. While he completed his training at San Marcos Army Air Field, the Army allotted him $250 to spend on officer's uniforms, which is less than the $360 he spent (22 April 1943). By August, he was stationed in Italy and explained he had travelled to Canada, Iceland, England, Ireland, and northwest Africa. In his September 27, 1944, reply to Lorraine’s questions, Bob explained the effects of war he observed in England and Italy and the impersonal nature of flying bombing missions. As a lieutenant, Bob had to occasionally censor letters from his unit when missions were grounded during inclement weather (19 October 1944). In his December 31st letter, he revealed that he had been retired from combat missions as of December 28th. He also listed several targets of his missions with Regensburg, Germany, being his final mission.

Bob wrote most of his letters after his return to the U.S. when he and Lorraine started dating. First, he was stationed at the Santa Ana Army Air Base but soon went to training refresher school at Ellington Field, Texas. He had choices: to be a navigation instructor or to join the Air Transport Command (ATC). Bob explained that he could not become a pilot since he had not been in the USAAF for twelve months. During the short time he was in California, Bob went deep sea fishing and to the Brown Derby where he and friends met actor B.S. Pulley (22 March 1945). While in Texas, he flew night flights and on May 17, 1945, he wrote a letter explaining his work on the verso of a Mercator chart during a flight to Meridian, Mississippi.

Bob mentioned running into men with whom he had served in Italy. His former commanding officer told him that their group would receive a Presidential citation for their mission over Vienna (17 May 1945). Another man told him that one of their buddies had been released from a POW camp but that there were still about twenty men missing (9 June 1945). After V-E Day, he learned that he should have six battle stars instead of two (18 July 1945). After V-J Day, Bob and Lorraine often discussed the points system used to discharge men from military service and speculated about his discharge date.

In early May, both Bob and Lorraine wrote about their experiences on V-E Day and the false alarms of peace being reported before it was official. Lorraine said St. Louis was subdued and she saw his parents at a special church service. Although everyone expected the announcement on the morning of May 8th, she had to report for work at 8 A.M., listen to the announcement, and then leave work at 8:15 A.M. as most places of business closed for the day. Bob described a ceremony at Ellington Field and reported that personnel were restricted to the base. On August 16th, Lorraine described the crowds in downtown St. Louis: “it was packed, everyone was crazy.”

From June 20 to July 6, 1945, Bob flew his first of three international Air Transport Command missions to various points between Memphis and New Guinea and wrote from several stops. Before he left, Bob finally received photographs of Lorraine and returned one that he asked her to enlarge (8 June 1945). He flew the second mission to the Philippines and wrote only one letter on July 22, 1945. The third international mission was in August to deliver an AT-7 airplane to Ecuador. After each mission, Bob visited St. Louis. In September 1945, Bob had the opportunity to fly to Guam but passed it along to another navigator planning to stay in the USAAF. The last two letters written by Lorraine on October 18th and 19th were redirected to Bob’s home address in St. Louis.