A Cousin Delivers a Message of Hope to Grateful Parents

(Continuation of Captain Estes's War Memoirs)

"Well, anyway, my mother and father were overjoyed
to see me. By this time they knew that I was okay and
on my way home, but they didn't know where I was or
when I would get there. And the last they heard from
me was a telegram from the Air Force saying I was
missing in action.

I guess right here I should stop and explain something
about my missing in action because there was a boy
in my squadron, the 415th in Italy, who had a sister
that was going to MSCW (Mississippi State College
for Women). Well, it just happened that I had a
cousin, Winky Samples that was going to MSCW
at the same time. So this boy, Fount Hutchinson,
had heard the transmissions we had made and
knew that somehow we were still okay, but he
didn't know where we were, but he knew that my
mother and father would get a telegram saying
that we were missing action. So he told his sister
to tell Winky to get in touch with my family and
let them know that we were last heard from
somewhere over there, but that he felt that we
were safe.

Well, this was all it took to encourage my mother
and father that I was okay, but they still had
no official hearing from the Air Force that I was
okay. I'm in touch with Winky Samples and she
is Winky Allen now and lives in Belzoni. And I
found Winky and I've talked with her several times
on the phone and I have seen her once or twice here
at my house. She stopped by when she was going to
Jackson and she would visit with me, and I can't tell
you how much I appreciate what she did for me and
my family at a time when they were just destitute.

That was just one of the little side things that happened,
and it just seemed so strange that at a time to have
somebody that far away from home to be able to
be that close to certain information and be able
to help so much in a situation where help was so
sorely needed."

(To be continued.)