Letters Home Podcast Features the Life of Major James Bruce McMahon from 1942 to 1945
By Emma Palova || Contributing writer
7/26/2024
A B-17 pilot, a patriot, an all-state athlete, a life-long resident of Lowell always living on the wild side, Major James Bruce McMahon saw the war from the air, while others saw it from the ground. He even said, “The ground troops have it harder than him.”
At 26, single, equipped with a private pilot’s license, he enlisted in the Army Air Corps at the Grand Rapids Recruitment station, in February of 1942, and expected to be notified to report for duty in about two weeks, according to The Lowell Ledger.
The paper reported that McMahon made two attempts on Tuesday to enlist. In the morning, he was rejected because of a slight eye defect but tried again in the afternoon and was accepted.
“Bruce McMahon, who has enlisted, in the U.S. Army Air Corps, has been ordered to report to the Santa Ana, CA, flying school on April 26,” the paper stated.
And that’s how McMahon’s journey and the first podcast episode of Letters Home began in a basement on Reservoir Hill when daughter, Laurie Summerfield, found a box of letters about a decade ago. “We had a collection of ideas,” said podcast host Annie McMahon Whitlock. “It was a good learning opportunity. We decided to record audio files.”
Whitlock, McMahon’s granddaughter, is a history buff, an Associate Professor of History/Social Studies at Grand Valley State University and author of Place-Based Social Studies Education: Learning from Flint, Michigan.
The collection of ideas came from more than 250 letters written by McMahon in beautiful cursive, first from the training in Santa Ana, and then from WWII years through 1945. “We partnered with the museum to digitize the letters and make visual displays,” she said.
Unlike the Lowell Area Museum’s oral histories, the ambitious project included the digitizing of the letters, the reading of the letters by family members, recording them and visual displays. “It’s a combination of all of these things,” Whitlock said. “We teamed up with Dale Kropf to do this.”
As in the case of many war Veterans, McMahon didn’t talk about the war years, when the kids were growing up. However, in later years, he started opening up more about it, after watching Winds of War, according to son, Mitch.
McMahon flew only one mission as a co-pilot because five out of six planes didn’t come back, and pilots were needed on B-17 bomber planes known as Flying Fortress. “The B-17 crews had high mortality rate,” Mitch said. “Dad underplayed it.”
He flew a total of 38 missions, including flying during D-Day, and taking pictures with his camera. For his heroism and leadership, McMahon was awarded the nation’s second highest medal, the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal. McMahon continued to fly after the war for supplies, and dropped off flowers and letters to his wife, Margaret, over Reservoir Hill, and he flew under the railroad bridge, and built a sailboat on Murray Lake.
It was evident that he was on the wild side, but according to the podcast team, McMahon also had a tamer side with his love for music and a sweet tooth for Faygo pop and Debbie cakes
However, since he couldn’t share any war facts in his letters, McMahon wrote about “everyday life” of a bomber pilot.
Following is an excerpt from his letter, dated June 13, 1942.
“If I was inclined to be homesick at all it would be tonight. It’s a beautiful night with a great yellow moon coming over some palm trees that border the post limits. The breeze from the ocean is cool and so fresh, it gives you a great kick just to breathe it. I’m not homesick but it’s nights like this that make you feel very close to me. It’s 10 o’clock here and one your time. I imagine you’re all sleeping and I can almost hear the crickets coupled with dad’s snoring as I sneak in the back way. Well maybe it would be later than one but anyway I can dream, can’t I? I can realize that my going away has been tough on you folks but remember you always said things happen for the best- and I firmly believe that.”
Kropf, a retired teacher, read all the letters, scanned them and matched them with visual content to create stunning visual online displays, along with historical context.
The historical context of the podcast is both local and international as was the war’s impact on the work force world-wide. Women worked in factories; they were growing victory gardens as businesses purchased war bonds. Scrap and rubber drives were held to honor the men in war. “Our community was responding to this big global event,” Whitlock said.
The podcast team would like to see community involvement in the project. “We’re looking for guests from the community,” Whitlock said. “We want community interaction from this to help piece some of the family mysteries together.”
The podcast team used The Lowell Ledger as one of the many sources for the project. “The paper is a big part of our project,” she said. Listen in to learn about Lowell’s history and how it connects to the world’s history.
You’ll be able to find everything for the podcast under the Collections & Research tab on the website www.lowellmuseum.org. In addition to listening to the podcast, you can also view the primary sources and actual letters and watch a YouTube video that accompanies the audio podcast. Click here to begin.
The weekly episodes go live on Thursdays.
