In 1943, a Marine pilot kept a diary during his service in World War II. Lt. Charles C. Winnia chronicled his missions flying against the Japanese in the Pacific, and his love for a girl back in Nashville, Tenn. Winnia was shot down, and never came home. His diary — nearly forgotten for over 60 years — was recently discovered and read by his sweetheart, Violet Jane Watkins, for the first time. V.J. Watkins tells NPR's Bob Edwards that she and Winnia, who had met in college, wrote each other a couple of times a week. Winnia was flying "a lot of missions — sometimes two and three missions a day," she says. "Sometimes he was so tired when he wrote that his handwriting was shaky."
"I do think that our friendship, our relationship was, of course, deepened by the letters," Watkins says.
Winnia's diary was kept by a Marine friend and pilot. It was discovered in the now-deceased man's garage five years ago behind his drill press. Diary hobbyists quickly started looking for Winnia's "V.J." In an impossible coincidence, Watkins was identified by Internet-savvy researchers at Agnes Scott College in Atlanta, Ga. They made the connection when processing Watkins' donation to the school. Soon, Watkins read Winnia's diary for the first time.
"The diary of course naturally did revive a lot of memories — not that they ever departed," Watkins says. "But [reading it] was an emotional experience."
How this realtes and can help me with my Radio play:
- Content: The whole idea about Diaries and letters to help lovers communicate during World War 2
-Dialogue:The Diary extracts given on this site can help me see how the lovers expressed their feelings to one another
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1671596
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