On November 23, 1943, A 24-Year-Old pilot named George Rarey, attached to the 379th Fighter Squadron, boarded the Queen Elizabeth and set sail for Britain. Rarey (he hated his first name and never used it) left behind his wife—Betty Lou, who was five months pregnant—and a most unusual background for a fighter pilot. When he was drafted in 1942, he’d been living in Manhattan’s raffish Greenwich Village, practicing the local trade of artist—specifically, cartoonist. He’d never had a driver’s license and was astonished to discover that the Army thought he’d make a good flier.

As it turned out, the Army was right. But he kept his pen and pad with him and recorded every aspect of his service not only in spirited drawings—brisk and seemingly casual, yet full of eloquent specifics—but also in letters to his wife. Here is what he drew, and what he told her, beginning shortly after his arrival in England.

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