Book Review: Our Last Mission

Main Common Robert F. Goldsworthy, USAFR retired, has supplied us with an enlightening, succinct, very well-penned, and enlightening account of his Environment War II experiences. The the vast majority of this book specials with his imprisonment in Japan. His procedure was intense it was replete with beatings, harsh interrogations, and it remaining him malnourished and at 50 percent his fat from starvation rations. During his imprisonment Goldsworthy dwindled from 170 lbs . down to 85 lbs . at liberation.

Goldsworthy was elevated on an jap Washington farm in McCoy Valley amongst the small farming communities of Rosalia and Oakesdale. Just after college or university he joined the military services and turned promoted to main and transferred to the 881st Squadron, 500th Bomb Team, 73rd Wing, U.S. Army Air Corps. As a youthful B-29 pilot, Main Robert Goldsworthy’s aircraft, the Rosalia Rocket, was shot down above the Chiba Prefecture, east of Tokyo, Japan. On December 3rd, 1944 he flew his previous mission of Planet War II. He survived and was captured. The big was initial held and interrogated at Kempei Tai, a army law enforcement headquarters. Following that torturous experience he was transferred on February 3rd, 1945 to Omori Labor Camp. Goldsworthy was last but not least produced on August 29th, 1945.

The 1st version of Our Previous Mission was written in 1948 and, remarkably, this next edition was finished in 2010 by a 93 calendar year-outdated Goldsworthy. I lately experienced conversations with the writer all through his 96th 12 months, as he granted authorization to use a several of his specifics for some of my writings, and he proved to be quite lucid and upbeat, in particular for his highly developed decades!

The most outstanding aspect of Our Past Mission was the author’s journey of forgiveness as he traveled to Japan in his later on yrs to get closure on the private prisoner-of-war experiences. It was successful as evinced by the next passage from his ebook:

“We parted with warm affection… shocked and rather moved by the generosity, thoughtfulness, and graciousness of our Japanese hosts, transcending the bitter enmity of so lots of many years ago. It was with sadness that we remaining Japan… “

Right after the war, Goldsworthy remained in the armed forces, served in Korea, and thereafter remained in the Air Power Reserves. On top of that, he invested 16 decades as a remarkably revered agent in the Washington State legislature. Soon after reading through this ebook and having spoken to Bob Goldsworthy, I felt closer to his mate, my uncle Charles Ralph Gregory, Jr., who was also a prisoner of the Imperial Japanese Forces. That closeness aided inspire me in my personal writings. But regrettably, Bob Goldsworthy, Sr. has considering the fact that crossed the Excellent Divide. He was a truly distinguished, intelligent, and temperate guy and a individual hero to many of us.