What happens when a box of old family letters opens a window into one of the most dangerous chapters of World War II?
This week on Here’s What We Know, we welcome author Jan Cress Dondi to talk about The Navigator’s Letter, a remarkable story built from letters, family memories, military records, and the lives of three young people whose paths were changed by war.
Listen in as the conversation takes us into the world of B-24 navigators, the deadly Ploesti mission, prisoner-of-war camps, and the emotional reality faced by young men who knew they might not make it home. Jan also shares the deeply personal connection she has to the story through her father, her uncle, and her mother, and how those letters helped bring their personalities and experiences back to life decades later.
We’ll also deep dive into what happens when the people who lived through history don’t talk about it and what families can discover when they take the time to ask questions and preserve the stories that remain.
If you have old letters, photographs, journals, or stories from someone in your family who served, this conversation may make you look at them a little differently.
This episode is sponsored by:
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In this episode:
- The true story behind The Navigator’s Letter
- What WWII letters reveal about the lives of young servicemen
- The dangers faced by B-24 crews and navigators
- The infamous Ploesti mission and “Black Sunday”
- Life inside a Romanian POW camp
- The friendship and complicated relationship between Bob, John B., and Polly
- Survivor’s guilt and the emotional cost of war
- Why family history matters before the people who lived it are gone
Quotations:
“My childhood fairy-tale bedtime stories weren’t fairy tales. They were dive-bombing Stukas and daring escapes from prisoner-of-war camp.” — Jan Cress Dondi
“All of them that had combat came back with PTSD. I will say most of them did drink.” — Jan Cress Dondi
“The navigator is the brains of the plane. The pilot is the brawn.” — Jan Cress Dondi
“You can’t adjust that move. You have to fly straight through it.” — Jan Cress Dondi
“Not only are you fighting the enemy fighters, you’re fighting the fires on board so that you can get home.” — Jan Cress Dondi
“They go to their tent, and all they want to do is decompress, so they write letters home.” — Jan Cress Dondi
“They called it Black Sunday, the Air Force’s darkest day. They lost 532 airmen out of the 1,700 airmen that took off that morning.” — Jan Cress Dondi
“I fell in love with both of my characters, my father and my uncle. Their personalities came so real to life to me in these letters.” — Jan Cress Dondi
“He said John B. was a hero, and he never wanted to be called a hero. But he was.” — Jan Cress Dondi
Bio:
Jan Cress Dondi’s journey began in Hillsboro, Illinois, where the inspiration for The Navigator’s Letter took root. With thirty years experience in legal writing and research, she learned to trace facts with precision, following threads of the past—across time, language, and continents. Her pursuit was personal—a labor of love of family—a desire to connect historical truth with the human experience. The culmination of which has enriched this narrative with depth and authenticity.
Hundreds of letters from two B-24 navigators—John B. and Bob—and a POW diary together with historical documents became the backbone of this book. Clues led Dondi on an emotional search for answers, one that carried her across the globe—to her father’s POW camp in Romania, the military archives in Germany, her uncle’s military base in England—where she pieced together a deeply human story of war, courage and love—one that had waited decades to be told.
Dondi was born in Hillsboro, IL. Raised in Atlanta, she graduated from the University of Georgia; lived years in Anchorage, AK, where she pursued post-graduate studies at the University of Alaska; and built a career as a litigation paralegal. She has spoken about her father’s POW experience at the US Embassy in Bucharest, recounted her uncle’s mission experience to the 93rd Bombardment Group in Washington, DC, and flown in one of the only B-24 Liberators still operating. The mother of two daughters and grandmother of four, Jan has been married nearly forty years to an aviation enthusiast and hobby pilot whose projects include building a 72% scale all-carbon replica of a P-51 Mustang, the WWII fighter that significantly impacted the war. She lives in Fort Lauderdale, FL.
Guest Contact Info:
Website: https://jancressdondi.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jancressdondi/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thenavigatorsletter/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/b24navigators/