This photo is of my dad, Leroy A. Darner. He is standing in the back row on the far right with his crew as part of the 398th Bomb Group in Nuthampstead, East Anglia, England. This would have been the summer of 1944.
Tom Darner eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch with Dad. We're leaning against the strip of garages for Wherry Officer's housing at 134 Andrews Court at Loring AFB. I'd been giving the job of trimming the grass along the bottom of the garages (15 or 20 of them). This is early 60s with no weed wacker. I was doing them with a one-handed garden trimmer. As my dad was the senior ranking he was the "Block Commander" With that, both me and my older brother Dave were often tasked to do lawn work ahead of base Civil Engineering getting there. We also did the lawns (though small) of any unit in our block who weren't home or when Dad was on B52 nuclear bomber alert that week. The top of the picture is the sloped end of the garage roof; made It easy to boost up or climb up from snow drifts to run around up there.
Tom Darner in El Paso Texas 1959 or so. This was Officer's Housing for Biggs AFB where my dad was a B36 aircraft commander. I was pre-kindergarten riding that bike. Had to jump off of it to stop. Ran into the back of parked car while riding and looking back. Got couple of stitches in the forehead for that.
