Dear Kimberly,

It has been on my mind to get back to you so I am doing it today. 
In regards to Joe Noyes, I first met him at advanced training for pilots at Luke Field, Phoenix, Arizona, in the Fall of 1942.

We were both aviation students rather than aviation cadets. 
This meant that we were from some other branch of the service, and carried our enlistment rank for pay purposes throughout flying school. 
We had an advantage there, as we got one half our enlisted pay extra as flight pay.

We didn't join the program to become officers. 
We were supposed to graduate as flying Sergeants, which meant to me that we couldn't be sent into a combat area, 
but would probably ferry aircraft from factory to delivery point.

I looked forward to traveling all over the world, meeting beautiful women and having a ball!

We got double crossed! 
Joe and I were among a group chosen to go directly to B-17's as co-pilots, graduating two weeks early and without even a ceremony.

My envelope read, "Staff Sergeant Paul E. Perceful". 
Upon opening the envelope I found wings, a couple of strange rank bars, 
and an official document designating me as "Flight Officer" Paul E. Perceful" Serial ET-46. 
We didn't know what the rank meant, and neither did anyone else!

Eugene Woods who had entered the program with me were able to obtain two cadet uniforms for our trip to Spokane, (He had the car). 
I have no idea what Joe and the rest of the aviation students showed up dressed as.

The first I remember of Joe was when he and I and Eugene Storck walked down to the flight line to go through a B-17. 
One of them said, "My God, it looks as big as a hotel". We of course had just come from flying single engine AT6's.

I saw Joe from time to time through our training at Rapid City, South Dakota. 
Then came combat in England. He was in a different squadron and on Capt Conley's crew. 
We talked from time to time and I think we went on a couple of tavern hops in the local area of our base.

I found Joe to be normally a quiet individual and a bit on the serious side. 
Oh yes, we were thrown together once. 
Returning from Christmas leave in 1942, I was returning to Rapid City from Hastings, Nebraska, 
and our trains meshed somewhere along the route. We sat together for the rest of the trip.

It was then that I found out that he was from Seattle and that he had lived on Queen Anne Hill. 
I also found out that he had a girl friend that he was very much in love with. 
Joe said that they had been intimate and that there was nothing in the world like being close to someone you love. 
I had to take his word for it.

Entering combat we would often discuss our missions. 
It was our custom to estimate how many missions we were good for. 
At this time we both had close to twenty missions with five to go. 
We had lost a great number of aircraft and crews, but instead of our normal pessimistic chatter, 
Joe said, "Percy, I really think I'm going to make it". I don't remember how I answered him.

I do know somewhere about this time their squadron leader was on an aircraft that was shot down
and Capt. Conley was promoted to Squadron Commander. 
Joe inherited the crew as first pilot.

As I remember it, Joe's first flight as pilot was aborted shortly after they were airborne,
 and he had to land the aircraft with a full load of bombs. 
Judging from his report he found that flight to be more than a little traumatic.

I know that Joe's aircraft did not return from a raid on Paris. 
I was not on that raid but when I found out that Joe was missing I attended the debriefing. 
One of the crewmen said that Joe's ship had survived the target and was seen in formation on the way back, 
but he did not make it back to base.

From that information my crew and several other aircraft flew a search and rescue mission over the English channel the next morning, 
but found no trace of his aircraft.

I knew nothing more of his status until I was assigned to Boeing Field on temporary duty in 1944. 
I looked up his parents and they invited me to their home. We went on a picnic together on the shore of Lake Washington. 
I told them all I knew about Joe's last flight. They were doing their best to accept his death. I did meet his brother.

As fate would have it I returned to the coast after the war and ended up living in Seattle. 
I was in sales for the Victor Adding Machine Company and part of my territory was the area of Queen Anne Hill.

So I looked up Joe's family and found out that the father had died and his mother was all alone in the original house. 
I also found out that Joe's body had been washed ashore at a little town in France called Burche La Pas, 
and that she had found out that he had been buried there. 
Sometime after the war was over they had brought him back for burial in the Catholic Cemetery in the University district. 
I visited the cemetery once on a weekend but there was no one in the office so I was unable to find his grave.

I hope some of this will be useful to you. I wish you well in your project.

Sincerely,

Paul E. Perceful