Something I had to do

This project is a labor of love manifested in a lifelong father-quest. It is, simply, something I had to do.

As war-babies whose fathers never came home to us, we received instead a yearning for something missing but ever-present. To that I added a burning desire to know my father.

I interrogated everyone in my life who had known him and a few who didn’t. Those who did: his parents, his sister and brother, and my mother, who lost more than I did, wrapped me in his story and informed my life with his memory and assurances that I was loved. It wasn’t until I was an adult woman with a clear vision of finding him and bringing him home, that I realized the measure of the man who was my father. As substance replaced mythology and wishful thinking, my father became real to me and to all who learned about him with me.

I partnered with the his fellow pilots of the 474th Fighter Group; the German air historians and others in Germany, Belgium, Holland, and Ireland; a German documentary film crew; literally hundreds of active and retired U.S. military members who made all the arrangements, opened all the doors, and arranged for all the practical magic with grace and careful attention; the dedicated team from the former Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command in Hawaii; my siblings from American WWII Orphans Network; my doctoral committee who helped me make this scholarly so I could gain credibility and cool jobs; my family, friends, cousins, aunts, uncle, and more supporters than I can thank in one lifetime.

But mostly, this is about learning to fly with the wings I was given in exchange for a father whose living voice I would never hear. My legacy is 450 letters sent between my parents, more proof of passion and big love than most of us ever realize. Though my parents’ time together was painfully brief, their relationship is indelible.  This project is about honor and sacrifice, another way to be a daughter, and a tribute to the eternal spirit of father-love across time and reality.

 — Sharon Estill Taylor, Ph.D.

About Sharon Estill Taylor

Sharon Estill Taylor, PhD, is an author, educator, speaker, and war orphaned daughter. She has taken a hiatus from being a Psychology, Social Work and Women’s Studies Chair to write books and to serve on the National WWII Museum’s Board of Trustees. She considers herself a late bloomer who aspired to be a foreign correspondent and live a life of endless adventure and travel. Some of that has actually happened with more of both predicted.

Phantom Son: A Mother’s Story of Surrender was published in September 2015 (Two Sylvias Press). Phantom Father: A Daughter’s Quest for Elegy (First Edition) was released in November 2016. The Second edition of Phantom Father was released in September 2021.

Spiegel TV’s documentary film,“A Love in the Time of War: the Last Flight of Lt. Estill,” follows her search for and recovery of her father’s WWII lost crash site in Germany.