For many years, William Duffy Sr. promised his family that he would write the harrowing tale of his survival after the World War II Air Force captain’s B-29 was shot down over Malaysia on Jan. 11, 1945.
Duffy died a decade ago, leaving his accounts of how he and the 10 members of his crew parachuted into the jungle and spent eight months trying to avoid both deadly disease and capture by the Japanese scrawled in his diary and in the memories of those he left behind.
One of Duffy’s 11 children, William Jr., thought his father’s story of courage and survival ought to be a book. Now it is.
After seven years of research and writing, the younger Duffy presented a copy of “Destiny Ours” to his 81-year-old mother, Naperville resident Peggy Duffy-Patterson Saturday. The presentation took place during a surprise family reunion at Washington Square restaurant in Naperville.
Eight of the Duffy children assembled to watch their mother gasp as Bill Jr. handed her a finished product.
“It’s so beautiful,” Patterson said as tears welled in her eyes. “I’m just thrilled to finally see this because my husband worked so hard to get out. It was his faith in God that got him through this.”
After the elder Duffy’s plane went down, the crew began a 600-mile journey through rivers and swamps. Four of them died; four were captured by the Japanese; but Duffy and two others survived eight months in the jungle until after the Japanese surrender ended World War II.
William Duffy Jr. said he approached his father 10 years before his death in October 1991 about writing the book for him. It was to become a years-long labor of love.
By the mid-1990s, the younger Duffy, who lives in Marion, Iowa, realized he would have to leave his work in corporate lease financing to research and write his father’s story.
“My wife, Jan, was very encouraging and she supported both of us while I took writing workshop classes at the University of Iowa,” Duffy said. “Then in July of 1997, I spent six weeks in Malaysia retracing my father’s footsteps.”
Using the Internet, Duffy found a woman teaching at the University of Malaya who had graduated from Northern Illinois University. She was able to round up locals who led Duffy to the crash site and pieces of the B-29 wreckage. Some, he said, could even remember seeing the plane coming down in a rice field.
Using those accounts and the three-volume diary his father kept of the ordeal, Duffy was able to piece together the story.
Former U.S. Sen. Bob Dole wrote a forward for Duffy’s self-published work. “`Destiny Ours’ is a wonderful story of faith, courage and survival, and a welcome addition to the history of the Greatest Generation,” Dole wrote.
Jan Duffy said there was never a question about supporting her husband and herself while he worked on the project.
“I’m so excited about this book. I know it means a lot to the family,” she said. “Bill’s mom is ready for this.”
As for Peggy Patterson, she thought she was going to the restaurant Saturday to have lunch with her youngest daughter, Colleen. Though she knew the book was in the works and had read parts of her son’s manuscript, Patterson had no idea she was about to see the finished product.
“I’ve often wondered why God has let me live this long, when so many others have left,” Patterson said. “I’m so thankful. Billy told me years ago he’d be the one to write the book, and I’m so proud of him for the years he spent doing it.”
Information about “Destiny Ours” can be found at www.farrellpublishing.com.
