My grandparents Frank Gustaf Severin and Clara Amelia Yunhild (Nelson) Erickson with my father Ernest Anders Erickson and four month old Dian Marcella (Boutrous) Erickson. They are sitting for a family portrait at their home at 801 Jefferson Avenue in Bismarck, North Dakota in September of 1940.

Ernest dreamed of being an aviator from childhood and a little over one year after this photograph was taken, he would begin a journey that would realize that dream.

When my father was thirteen in 1935, the family moved to Bismarck. Growing up during the Depression, Ernest watched the skies for airplanes as he walked home from school each day. He enjoyed going with his father Frank to see the barnstorming flyers who put on exhibitions in the area. His childhood hero was Charles Lindbergh, and he kept a keen eye on Lindbergh in the news. Along with stories told to him by his Uncle Andrew, brother of Frank, who had served in the Air Corps with the 101st Aero in World War I, the mystery of flight was upon him.

Ernest had become quite attentive to the skies, so it was almost prophetic that he too would one day join the Army Air Corps. By late 1943, starting off from Langley Field in Virginia, Lt. Ernest Anders Erickson and crew flying a B-17 took-off for England having been assigned to the 95th Bomb Group at Horham Airfield in England.

The crew of ten men began combat flying early in 1944 and by August 26th, 1944 they completed their thirty fifth mission over German occupied Europe.

Horham celebrated the 95th Bomb Group's 200th mission in early September of 1944 and my father (red dot - center) stands with other Airmen and ground crew in photograph below.