One of the memorable collections housed in the college archives is the Jimmy Ley Collection, which contains a number of letters, photographs, and personal items belonging to Staff Sergeant James J. Ley (ex-’44). Ley decided to leave Grinnell College in 1942 to join the Army Air Corps, eventually becoming a gunner/engineer on B-26 bombers, flying 25 combat missions over occupied Europe. One of the letters to his parents, written November 25, 1942, thanks them for the “Thanksgiving box” they had sent to his training base in Texas: “Of course it was all gone in about fifteen minutes, but my memory still rests with that fine box of goodies.” He went on to explain that Thanksgiving day, itself, would be their last day of training school, and they would ship out the next morning. Reflecting on the holiday, James wrote:

We’re all going to have so much to be thankful for this year. Our health, happiness, the way the war is going, and ever so many other things…I wonder where I’ll be a week from now?

Jimmy ended up in England, assigned to the 451st bombardment Squadron, flying missions across the channel until his plane was shot down on the 29th of February, 1944, over France. The fate of the crew remained unknown for months, but one of the most poignant letters in the collection is a Thanksgiving missive (dated Nov. 23, 1944) from the mother of the plane’s pilot, Mrs. Anna Freeman, to Jimmy’s mother (below). Having learned that her son, Lt. Clifton Freeman, and three other crew members from the plane had been recently confirmed as killed-in-action, she acknowledged the pain of the moment: “This is Thanksgiving, but it has been a very lonely day for us.” She pointed out, however, that 3 of the crew (including Jimmy) were still considered missing-in-action. “I pray you get good news from your Son soon,” and she confessed that “we are praying and living in hopes that some mistake has been made and our son is safe, somewhere.” In her letter, she included a photograph of the B-26 crew, listing each member, their role, and their home town (that original picture, now preserved in the Ley collection, is reproduced below). S/Sgt Jimmy Ley was in the front row, on the left, while Lt. Freeman, was in the back row, second from the left, proudly wearing an Ohio hat (as his mother pointed out). Eleven months later, the War Department declared Jimmy Ley (and the other missing crew members) dead, and posthumously awarded S/Sgt Ley the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal with Oak Leaf clusters, presented to his family at a funeral service held in his hometown of Lakota, Iowa.