My father Jack Myer Sturman was a clerk at Sears on the Boulevard and the youngest of the three Sturman brothers who rushed down to draft board number 58 on Snyder Avenue to sign up on Monday morning, December 8th, 1941. Their neighbor Jack H Feldman, PVT US Army Air Corps, had been killed in the Dec 7th attack at Pearl Harbor, at Hickam Field. Eldest brother Maurice (1907-77) was rejected for a heart condition, Ben (1910-96) joined the US Marines, becoming a combat dog handler, and my dad was accepted in the US Army Air Forces. He made Technical Sergeant and saw action in New Guinea and in the landing on Biak Island, in the advance party that set up the airfield facilities there under combat conditions, and endured many hardships and dangers.

After the war he returned to Philadelphia, married my mother Jean Fitch and they had three boys. He worked as a driver for Yankee Maid for awhile and then as an insurance agent for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co until his retirement in the 1980s. He attendend the WWII Fifth Air Force Reunion held at Robins AFB Georgia in 1985. In the photo are my daughter Naomi, Jack Sturman, my brother Mitchell who is a high school music teacher (former symphony clarinetist) and his son, my nephew Adam.