In 1945, the transport planes in Bob Graham’s
squadron shuttled everything from C-rations to atomic
bomb parts ever deeper into the South Pacific. Every
island and atoll extracted an
awful price. On flights back to
California, the big C-54s were
jammed with casualties of
savage combat.
Tech. Sgt. Graham was an Army
Air Forces flight engineer who
went on to serve seven terms
as state auditor. His best friend
in college was a Japanese
American. “It was horrifying
to me that 110,000
Japanese were
behind barbed wire
back
home. I
thought,
‘My
God! This
cannot be
happening
here in free
America.’ ”