Mesquite Creek to Michigan

About the Book

From the “Roaring Twenties” through the years of the great depression of 1929 –32 and around the world in wartime. Scratching for a living during hard times when no jobs were available. Moving from town to town in search of employment. Living in a tent in the Piney woods of East Texas with his parents and two brothers, selling whiskey bottles, hunting birds and squirrels for food, but most importantly, not giving up. Traveling to the great West Texas area to live with and work on an Uncles Ranch until the father found temporary work in the South Texas town of Hebbronville. Riding the primitive bus of that era from West Texas to the South Texas Brush Country of what was formerly called the Wild Horse Desert only to find the new home was less than hoped for and the temporary work was not forthcoming. Being deserted by the father and struggling to survive. Trying to cope with their mothers terminal illness and searching for their father and help for their mother. Thanks to the warmth and openness of the citizens of Hebbronville they were able to send her to Dr. Norman Bakers’ “Cancer Hospital” in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. The “Cancer Hospital” only took what little money the family could raise through the generosity of the little towns citizens.

After several fruitless weeks in Eureka Springs, Anne Wilson came home to be with her sons when death came. After the funeral Bobby and Donald were invited to live with a childless couple, Beth and John Charles Craighead. Following graduation, Bobby had an abortive college football experience and tried to join the Army Air Corps as a fighter pilot. The lack of a birth certificate prevented him from joining that force as well as the Navy and the Marine air arms. Our young man then left Texas to join the Canadian Air Force during the Battle of Britain before the United States became embroiled in World War II. When a Canadian Colonel advised him to return to the U.S.A. Bob found a new life waiting for him in the City of Detroit.

Meeting and courting his future wife, Eulane Coleman, the various jobs held and finally the proposal of marriage to Eulane. Living with rationing, restricted activities due to wartime shortages and entering into the armed services of the United States following the shocking news of Pearl Harbor when the Japanese navy attacked that fateful Sunday morning of December 7th, 1941.

Bob attended various technical schools in the Army Air Force and wound up in Florida at the 7th Photo Intelligence School to be trained as an intelligence specialist. Instead of being sent immediately overseas as planned he was made an instructor in the 7th AAF Photo Intelligence School before finally getting his overseas orders.

Getting his shipping orders when his young wife, Eulane, was eight months pregnant with what was to be their oldest child, Alice Ann Wilson. Traveling by troop train to North Carolina, from there to Los Angeles Port of Embarkation and the miserable thirty-two day sail from L.A. through the South Pacific, around Australia and on to Bombay, India. Riding the primitive Indian railway system across the Indian Nation to serve the war effort in the China-Burma-India theater, meeting his younger brother in Calcutta. In that large city he helped find a cell of a large spy ring working for the Japanese. Slogging through the monsoons where his shoes rotted off, battling the jungle and the hostile environment then surviving a belly landing in a C-47 contracting amoebic dysentery and dengue fever. Celebrating the surrender of Japan following the dropping of the Atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Once again boarding a troop ship, this time for the much looked for sail for ‘Uncle Sugar’, a happy reunion with his wife and meeting his first born child for the first time. All these add up to a brief but telling story of one man’s service to America and the war effort.

About the Author

. A member of what Tom Brokaw termed “The Greatest Generation”, surviving the great depression of 1929 and serving his country overseas in the China-Burma-Theater during World War Two; this is Bob Wilson’s story of the years between 1921 and 1945 and his adventures around the world in wartime. Compelled to leave his young pregnant wife to go overseas, traveling to exotic, war torn places, traveling by ship, plane, truck and train and at wars end finally coming home to her and their fourteen month old baby girl. Ready to take up their lives and build a home for their family like millions of other veterans of that era.