Passion - part III

This past summer I helped my friend Jon Teboe set up a blog to track the progress of his passion project--a documentary about World War II fighter pilots. It all started with a diary kept by William R. Perkins, a.k.a. "Perk," a young fighter pilot 356th Fighter Squadron. Perk was the younger brother of Gordon Perkins, who was married to Jon's mom. It was Jon's mom who saved the diary, and other assorted memorabilia that belonged to Perk, from the trash. Reading the detailed account of Perk's last six months (he was killed when his plane crashed on June 13, 1944--just days after D-Day and a little over a month before his 24th birthday...), Jon was inspired to make a documentary about his life.

But after researching and interviewing members of the 354th Fighter Group (of which Perk's squadron was a part), Jon expanded the scope of his project to include all the heroes of the 354th Fighter Group. Wearing many hats: producer, director, writer and editor, Jon's been working on this project for several years now. When I worked on setting up the blog with him, he showed me Perk's scrapbook and offered up lots of interesting factoids he had gleaned from his extensive research. The film is slated for completion this summer. Way to go, Jon!