OPEN LETTER

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 279, 25 November 1941, Page 4

OPEN LETTER

TO AIRMAN'S PEN FRIEND TRAGEDY ENDS ROMANCE (0.C.) SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 17. The Los Angeles Times, under the caption "R.A.F. Sends Personal Note to Some Los Angeles Girl," had the following in a recent issue:— "This is a personal note to one particular Los Angeles girl. Did you write a letter several months ago to Pilot-Officer J. M. Steeds, of the Royal Air Force?, If so, there is a letter for you from his buddy bearing bad news about Steeds. The letter is in the president's office at the University of Southern California. Addressed to 'The Secretary, Federation of University Women, U.S.A.,' the message finally found its way to Southern California after being mailed more than a month ago by Sergeant-Pilot Davis S. Gibb, New Zealander now in the R.A.F.

"The letter read in part: 'Some months ago a friend of mine, PilotOfficer J. M. Steeds, of New Zealand, mentioned to me a letter he had received from a girl in Los Angeles. He did not know her, but she had got his name from somebody or other and had taken the trouble to write to him, simply because he was far from home and at war. Johnny greatly appreciated the kindly thought and I know he intended to reply. Whether or not he did I cannot say, for he has been missing for some months and is now classified as "missing—believed killed."

" 'It occurred to me that the girl who wrote to him may be expecting to hear from him and is perhaps wondering why she does not, so I am writing on the chance that you might perhaps try to find the correspondent and let her know what has happened.'"