Can I just take a moment to say WOOOOHOOOO!
Ahem. I have to take a moment to re-compose myself, but I am super excited right now.
So I don't know if I mentioned this in my past posts, but for months now I have been trying to dig up solid evidence about what happened on March 28, 1944 when Lynn Drollinger (my grandfather) was shot down.
After weeks of searching on my own, which was relatively fruitless, I decided to shoot off an e-mail to the U.S. Air Force. I figured, if anyone would have information about the date in question, they would. However, I wasn't sure if they would get back to me, or how long it would take. After all, an e-mail from little ol' me asking questions about events from the 1940's is not exactly high priority. I cant remember, but I think it was a separate e-mail than from prospective Air corp. questions, but I'm sure they get more than a few e-mails in a day.
A couple weeks passed and I got an e-mail back from a well-mannered guy named Tobias. He politely informed me that the Air Force doesn't have documents from before 1947, which was when the Air Force split from the Army to become its own entity. Then he pointed me towards the Air Force Historical Research Agency website. I couldn't find what I wanted off of their site itself, so I sent them an e-mail asking if they might have any files from the events of march 28th, 1947.
Some time passed and eventually they sent me an e-mail saying that they were behind schedule in answering questions but that they had not forgotten about me.
Yesterday, I went out to get the mail and there was a beautiful orange envelope waiting for me! And boy, they sent me more information than I could have even hoped for! It looks like all of the reports from back then have been declassified. I cant wait to spend today looking them over in more detail, but its already looking like I'm going to have to re-write parts of the first chapter now that I have a better understanding of what happened. So thank you everyone in the Air Force Historical Research Agency, you have made my day!
