This is my father, Ernest Anders Erickson's collection of the families correspondences (letters and postcards) dating from the early 1900s through 2013. Communiques from all over the country and Europe.

The letters were collected and kept safe during the many years by my grandparents Clara Amelia (Nelson) and Frank Gustaf Severin Erickson in Bismarck, North Dakota. It was in this box I found all my father's Air Corps letters that he penned to his folks during the war. All 239 letters from 1942 through 1945, written while he was stationed at Horham Airfield in England while he was a B-17 pilot with the 8th Air Corps and a member of the 95th Bomb Group. Many contain quite a compelling story.

The remaining letters and cards in the box were written by about everyone in the family that I knew or have heard about. A good percentage were originally mailed to my grandparents address at 801 Jefferson Avenue in Bismarck.

Dozens are from my grandfather Frank when he was serving with the American Expeditionary Force in 1917 - 1919 and before when he was living out west adventuring around California, Montana, Arizona, Washington and Oregon.The rest are letters written by my cousin Ronny Erickson, aunts Vera (Gallagher) Erickson and Dian Marcella (Boutrous) Erickson, my grandmother Blanche Rose (Nathan) Hesslein and my mother Bernice Lane (Hesslein) Erickson. Quite an undertaking to go through and I still have a couple hundred to read.

Attached below is one of the letters written in the late morning of June 6th, 1944 from Horham Airfield after my father, Lt. Ernest Anders Erickson had returned from his twenty first mission of the thirty five he would complete. The letter is to his folks and four year old sister Dian "Dinny" Marcella (Boutrous) Erickson.

It talks of that day and quite the day it was and what he saw and felt about the invasion.

Dear Dad, Mom & Dinny,         June 6, 1944 - England

Today was the big day. The Invasion finally came off! Imagine there’s a lot of forecasting and talk back there? We never got to go on that seven day flak pass. Was supposed to leave today, but I guess we won’t get it now. However, I guess if we can make it any easier on the ground, it’s worth giving up. The Air Corps been in the war for a couple years, so I guess it’s their turn now, but we hope for their sake that it’s short.

The ground forces are going to have it rough. Dad probably realizes that. But we are glad someone besides the Air Corps is getting into this deal! I hope the day soon comes that we can land at the airports near the cities that we’ve been bombing.

I’m listening to Fred Waring and his Pennsylvanians. You remember I used to listen to them ‘back home? The mail situation has been very poor lately. No one is getting much mail. That’s the way it goes! Give the folks my regards. How are they? Tell Grandma that she’s going to have to quit getting drunk every Saturday night! How’s Grandpa?

It was four months the ninth of this month that I left for overseas, so will be glad to see N.Y.C. again. I now have 22 missions. Not bad!
I imagine the papers are full of the Invasion? I got a pretty good view of it.

Love Ernie