World War II Love Letters Help a Daughter Find Her Missing Father二戰情書傳音　父親尸骨還鄉

Sharon Estill Taylor has no firsthand memories of her father. The World War II fighter pilot was shot down over Germany in April 1945， when Taylor was just three weeks old.

莎倫·埃斯蒂爾·泰勒對父親沒有一丁點兒直接記憶。1945年4月，作為二戰戰斗機飛行員的父親在德國上空被擊落時，泰勒剛剛出生3個星期。

The war in Europe ended less than a month later， but there was little closure for the Estills back in Cedar Rapids， Iowa. There was no body to bury or clarity on whether 1st Lt. Shannon Estill had bailed out before enemy anti-aircraft fire destroyed his P-38J Lightning.

不到一個月后，歐洲的戰事結束，但這并未讓艾奧瓦州錫達拉皮茲市的埃斯蒂爾一家感到安慰。香農·埃斯蒂爾中尉生不見人，死不見尸——無法確定他是否在敵軍防空火炮摧毀他的P-38J“閃電”戰斗機之前已經跳傘逃生。

The letters the 22-year-old pilot had exchanged with his wife Mary since they were high school sweethearts stopped coming. Taylor’s father was deemed unaccounted for and eventually listed as killed in action， despite his body not being recovered.

這位22歲的飛行員自此斷了音訊——自高中相愛以來，他與妻子瑪麗一直保持通信。泰勒的父親被列為失蹤軍人，盡管尸體并未找到，最終還是被認定為陣亡。

One day when Taylor was seven years old， she sipped a chocolate malt at a soda counter as her paternal grandmother shared stories about their fallen1 hero， her eyes welling up as she remembered her late son. “Nana， it’s OK，” Taylor assured her. “I’m going to find him and bring him home.”

七歲那年的某一天，泰勒在汽水柜臺旁一邊小口喝著巧克力麥芽飲料，一邊聽奶奶淚眼朦朧地回憶犧牲的兒子，講述他的英雄事跡。“奶奶，沒事的。”泰勒保證道，“我一定會找到爸爸，帶他回家。”

It was a promise Taylor， now an author and retired professor， would keep. In 2006， propelled by clues she pieced together2 from her parents’ wartime letters—along with help from military historians， eyewitnesses， and an excavation team—Taylor concluded a multi-decade mission to recover her father’s remains and bring him home.

如今身為作家、退休教授的泰勒早已兌現自己的諾言。她從父母的戰時信件中拼湊出線索，又在軍事歷史學家、目擊者和挖掘隊的幫助下，終于完成了跨越幾十年的任務——2006年，她找到了父親的尸骨，并將父親接回家鄉。

In 2022， through an immersive sound and light show premiering at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans on Veterans Day3， she brought her parents’ experience， and a larger story of war casualties and their families， to new generations.

2022年退伍軍人節那天，通過一場在新奧爾良市美國國家二戰博物館首演的沉浸式聲光秀，泰勒向新世代的人們講述了她父母的經歷，以及眾多戰爭傷亡者及其家人的故事。

Growing up with a missing father

少小父失蹤

“I was raised by a grieving mother， with grieving grandparents a few doors down，” says Taylor. She’d tell the trash collector that her daddy died in the war. Even after her mother remarried， Taylor insisted on leaving an extra table setting for her missing father.

“我從小看著媽媽悲傷哀悼，僅有幾戶之隔的爺爺奶奶也總是傷心落淚。”泰勒說。她會跟清潔工說爸爸打仗犧牲了。即使媽媽再婚后，泰勒也堅持要給失蹤的爸爸多擺一套餐具。

Nana Estill eventually gave Taylor a silver box containing some 450 letters—handwritten correspondences from her parents， spanning from their high school courtship to Estill’s pilot training to his deployment in the fall of 1944. Also included were six months’ worth of unopened letters Taylor’s mother continued writing after her husband went missing.

后來，奶奶給了泰勒一個銀盒子，里面裝著大約450封信。這些都是泰勒父母的手寫信，始于兩人高中談戀愛時，貫穿父親接受飛行員訓練的全程，再到1944年秋天父親被派上戰場。其中還有未開封的信件，都是泰勒母親在丈夫失蹤后的6個月里寫的。

In the 1990s， with her own children grown， Taylor spent a summer transcribing the letters， getting to know her father through the resulting 3，000 typed pages. He cracked jokes， sketched pictures， and expressed how much he adored his wife. “I just love to get your letters， sweets， they are so like you， so dear. You are always in my heart， but they seem to bring you even nearer，” he wrote in March 1944.

到了20世紀90年代，泰勒自己的孩子都已長大成人，于是她花一整個夏天用打字機謄錄父母的信件，借助打印出來的3000頁紙來了解自己的父親。他講笑話、畫圖、對妻子表達深深的愛意。他在1944年3月寫道：“我好喜歡收到你的信，親愛的。這些信就像你一樣，是那么地珍貴。你始終在我心頭，可是這些信似乎把你拉得離我更近了。”

Occasionally he’d reference the harshness and importance of the war： “I’m so thankful that you’re in the States and not over here somewhere. Everything except danger is scarce” and “I know that what I’m fighting for is right and decent.”

他偶爾還會提起戰爭的殘酷和重要性，比如“我很慶幸你在美國，而不是在這里的某個地方。一切都很稀缺，唯獨危險例外”，還有“我知道自己為之奮斗的是正義之事，是體面之事”。

Concerned that his wife would soon give birth without him there， Estill told her that he’d gone to the military doctor for some reassurance. In a letter dated March 2， 1945， he diagrammed different methods for changing cloth diapers. “Every man in the 428th is worrying about the baby’s arrival，” he wrote.

埃斯蒂爾擔心妻子很快就要生產，自己卻不能守在身旁，他告訴妻子自己找軍醫問了問，總算稍有心安。在一封日期為1945年3月2日的信中，他畫了好幾種換尿布的方法。“第428戰斗機中隊的每個人都很關心孩子的到來。”他寫道。

When Taylor was born a few weeks later， Estill addressed his letter to his “Angel Girls.” He had just one more mission to fly before he could go home on leave. He attached a baby bootie to his flight helmet for good luck.

幾周后，泰勒出生，埃斯蒂爾給他的“天使姑娘們”寫了一封信。他只需再出一次飛行任務，就可以回家休假。他給自己的飛行頭盔拴上一只嬰兒鞋，以求好運。

Was he really dead？ What happened？

他真的犧牲了嗎？究竟發生了什么事？

Beyond treasuring her father’s words for their wisdom， perspective， and poetry， Taylor also used them to piece together the mystery of what had happened on that final mission. Her research took her to the Library of Congress and the National Archives.

除了珍視父親話語中的智慧、遠見和詩情畫意，泰勒還用信中內容拼湊出了父親的最后一次任務，解開了其中謎團。為深入研究，她去了美國國會圖書館和國家檔案館。

She learned that on April 13， 1945， Estill had taken off with 10 other fighter pilots to attack a railway station and destroy Nazi supply lines. She found a reference to a possible crash site near the town of Elsnigk in eastern Germany.

她得知，1945年4月13日埃斯蒂爾與另外10名戰斗機飛行員一同起飛，去突襲一個鐵路站點，以搗毀納粹的補給線。她在一份文件中發現，墜機地點可能在德國東部的埃爾斯尼克鎮附近。

With the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989， it had become possible for Taylor to visit the potential crash site. She connected with German military aviation historian Hans-Guenther Ploes， who agreed to help her try to find and identify any aircraft and human remains.

柏林墻已于1989年倒塌，所以泰勒得以前往那處疑似墜機地點。她聯系上德國軍事航空歷史學家漢斯-京特·普勒斯，后者同意幫忙尋找、辨認飛機殘骸和人體遺骸。

It was a long shot4 by all accounts， but a break came in 2003， when Ploes discovered the data plate from Estill’s downed plane， along with bone fragments nearby. The predecessor of the Department of Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency （DPAA）5 sent a recovery team from the United States.

人們都認為此舉成功的希望渺茫，但在2003年，轉機出現了。普勒斯找到了埃斯蒂爾那架墜毀戰斗機的銘牌，附近還有骸骨碎片。美國國防部戰俘與失蹤人員統計局的前身從美國派出一支搜尋隊伍。

In 2005， the DPAA team， accompanied by Ploes and Taylor， led a three-week excavation. Taylor says that from the moment she set foot on the site， she could feel that her dad was there. DNA analysis confirmed that the remains were his.

2005年，在普勒斯和泰勒的陪同下，搜尋隊展開了為期3周的挖掘工作。泰勒說，從踏足墜機地點的那一刻起，她就能感覺到父親長眠于此。DNA分析證實，遺骸正是泰勒父親本人的。

On a sunny October day in 2006， Taylor and her family buried her father’s remains at Arlington National Cemetery. Beyond fulfilling her vow to her grandmother， Taylor says her mission has been to get closer to her father and his legacy. “I wanted to know the truth，” she says. “I wanted his memory and what he did to never be forgotten.”

2006年10月某個陽光燦爛的日子，泰勒和家人一起將父親的遺骸葬在阿靈頓國家公墓。除了履行對奶奶的承諾，泰勒說她的使命是要更深入地了解父親，了解他留給世人的東西。“我想要探明真相。”她說，“我希望他的記憶、他的事跡永遠不會被遺忘。”

Taylor keeps photocopies of her parents’ letters in a cabinet in her Scottsdale， Arizona， home and looks to them for wisdom， which she sometimes shares with her four children and ten grandchildren. Every year on her father’s birthday， she writes him a letter.

泰勒把父母信件的影印本珍藏在亞利桑那州斯科茨代爾家中的儲藏柜里。她從中汲取智慧，還時不時跟4個子女和10個孫輩孩子分享。每到父親的生日，她都會給他寫一封信。

She has also come to realize that she’s not alone in her pursuit to know the truth about her father’s death. There’s an entire population of Americans who’ve lost parents and loved ones in military conflicts overseas and wish they knew more. “Our reality was never， ‘Oh yay， the war is over. Daddy is coming home，’” Taylor says. “We were disenfranchised. I realized that was hugely important.”

她還漸漸意識到，探究父親死亡真相的不止她自己。許多美國人的父母、愛人在海外軍事沖突中喪生，他們每個人都希望了解更多內情。“‘哎呀，太好了，戰爭結束了。爸爸快回家了。’——我們從未有過這種感受。”泰勒說，“我們被剝奪了知道真相的權利。我發覺這一點非常重要。”

Taylor shares her story widely， raising awareness of soldiers who never return from war and the importance of recovery efforts. An estimated 81，000 American service members’ bodies remain unaccounted for from past conflicts， and she wants others to know that， with the support of organizations like the DPAA， there are ongoing efforts to locate the fallen and bring closure to their families.

泰勒把自己的故事廣泛地與人分享，引起人們對失蹤士兵以及搜尋工作的重視。據估計，在以往的沖突中，共有8.1萬名美國軍人的尸體仍下落不明。泰勒想讓大家知道，在國防部戰俘與失蹤人員統計局等組織的支持下，人們一直在努力搜尋犧牲者，給他們的家人一個交代。

Taylor will never know exactly what her father’s final moments were like. But as she previewed the Expressions of America exhibition in New Orleans and saw his loving words to his “Angel Girls” projected on a 90-foot-tall6 canvas， she felt， in a way， that he had finally come home.

父親的最后時刻究竟是怎樣的，泰勒永遠無法得知確切的答案。但是，在預覽新奧爾良市的“美國的表達”展覽時，她看到父親寫給“天使姑娘們”的深情話語映在90英尺高的畫布上，覺得從某種程度上來說，父親終于回家了。

（譯者為“《英語世界》杯”翻譯大賽獲獎者）

1 fallen〈正式〉（士兵）陣亡的。 2 piece sth together 組合資料（以便了解情況）。 3退伍軍人節是美國為紀念退役美國軍人以及陣亡將士而設立的節日，時間為每年的11月11日。

4 a long shot 成功希望不大的嘗試。

5美國國防部戰俘與失蹤人員統計局（DPAA）于2015年1月成立，由此前負責該項事務的美軍戰俘與戰斗失蹤人員聯合調查司令部、美國國防部戰俘/失蹤人員辦公室以及部分美空軍生命科學實驗室合并組成。DPAA的主要職責是代表美國政府尋找戰爭結束后依然被關押、失聯失蹤的美方人員下落，盡可能把人活著帶回美國，如已死亡則負責識別、尋回海外陣亡軍人的遺骸遺物。

6 90英尺約為27.43米。