I was an adult before I learned that my mother’s cousin fought and died in World War II. I was visiting my parents in Lincoln, Nebraska, and my mother, Phyllis Kokjer Beck, had a copy of Ty Kokjer’s diary.
The story captivated me, and I wanted to learn more. But in the midst of a career in the news business, I had no time to research and write a book about something I knew relatively little about. As a Baby Boomer, my generation’s war was in Vietnam. My parents’ generation spoke little about their own war and got on with their lives. We barely reached World War II history in high school.
In 2015, a year before I retired, I visited my mother’s sister, Janet, a genealogist, and my uncle, Normal L. Sothan, a retired U.S. Navy aviator, at their home outside Denver, Colorado. Norm, who died in 2018, had thought about writing Ty’s story, but a busy military and post-military career had occupied his time. When I asked for a copy of the diary so I could begin work on the book, they said yes.
Although I knew Ty’s parents, Hans and Shy Kokjer, who occasionally visited my family, they never talked about Ty in front of me. Both died while I was in college. After their deaths, Janet inherited the diary and other family keepsakes.
There was much more than Ty’s war diary in that cache. A brown leather suitcase stored for 40 years in their cool, dry basement contained more than 400 letters, two scrapbooks full of family photos, and other memorabilia, including Ty’s water-damaged wallet. Most of the letters were Ty’s near-daily reports from pilot training. But more than three dozen were letters his parents, sent to Ty in the Philippines. They came back after the war started. Janet, Norm, and I sat at their dining room table 75 years later and opened them. Their hopeful words brought tears to our eyes.