Uncle Rudy

Rest in Peace Uncle Rudy
~ died 79 years ago today~

TSgt Raymond R. Carriker
b. June 3, 1921 - d. April 1, 1944
93rd Bombardment Group
Stationed at RAF Hardwick, Norfolk, UK
Killed in action, over Reims, France

Rudy was my father's older brother; their youngest brother -- my Uncle Don has written a sad and beautiful tribute to Rudy's service in the 8th Army Air Corps:

So Briefly An Eagle

The Carriker Family

Grandma Adeline "Shug" ~ Grandpa Willard "Jack" ~ Rudy ~ Robert
Willard [my dad] ~ Frances ~ Gene
Don

Summer 2005
Dear Uncle Don,

Thanks so much for your notes earlier in the summer, and please forgive my delay in getting back to you. How is your Uncle Rudy" project coming along? I greatly look forward to reading it. Last night, Gerry, Ben, Sam and I were watching that old romantic 1980s movie, Yanks, in which a young Richard Gere plays an American soldier stationed in England during WWII. It got me thinking -- did Uncle Rudy have a girlfriend in England? Or someone back home in Kansas? I suddenly felt very sad to think that I knew so little about him. Your book will help fill a gap for all of us.

I got your note about Hardwick the very day we left for England, so I'm very sorry to say that it wasn't possible for me to visit there this summer, but now that I know where it is, maybe I can make it sometime in the future. The location is on the opposite side of the country from Gerry's parents (they are in the north west, just outside of Liverpool; Hardwick is in Norfolk, in the south east). But, who knows, maybe one year before long Ben or Sam will be doing an internship in Cambridge and I'll find myself visiting that part of the country.

All the research I did was just on web here from home, which of course you can easily do also and probably have done already to a much greater extent than I. Still, I'm going to go ahead and send you what I found just in case you don't have it already. If you do, well, just delete. No harm in that!

Reply from Uncle Don

Thanks for the info on Hardwick. Some of it I had seen, some not. Uncle Rudy, as I remember him -- and keep in mind that I was 12 when he died -- was the quintessential "big brother" to me. He is the only one of my brothers (frankly) who had very much to do with me. Now -- in my memory -- he has grown to mythic proportions and I realize that.

Unfortunately he was not much of a writer and left almost no "tracks" behind. A few pictures and a few letters mostly of the "How are you? I'm fine." genre. He went through public school in a very dark time, dealing with extreme poverty, much more "poverty" than anyone in the USA has suffered for decades. So he was not really well educated. But he deserves to be memorialized as best as can be done. He was a gregarious, kind, generous, young man who loved the girls, and loved "real" people, and had the ability to charm them pretty well.

As far as I know, he never dated any English lasses. Quite honestly what little he said about the English people was not complimentary. He did not care for the British "reserve." When I wrote asking him what the English people were like he replied by saying they are cold and unfriendly. "When you speak to them on the street they give you a go to hell look and don't answer." That would've turned him off because he loved interacting with people. But then, the British weren't too fond of the "Yanks." I've heard that the Brits comment about the "Yanks" during the war was, "They're overpaid, oversexed, and over here." It must have been a trying time for "the cousins."

When I complete his biography, God willing, you shall have a copy.

Love, Uncle Don