The story begins in November 1945, in San Francisco. The war had ended a few months earlier with Japan’s surrender in Tokyo Bay on September 2. My father, an ensign in the Navy, had served on an oil tanker in the Pacific, and in the weeks since V-J Day, he, along with thousands and thousands of other service members, had returned to the United States via the port of San Francisco, where they were welcomed and celebrated as war heroes. Large and small acts of appreciation were happening daily throughout the city.

My father had been granted a one-week leave before his next assignment – precious little time to make his way 3,000 miles across the country to his home in a small town in eastern North Carolina. He was homesick for his parents and his girlfriend, even for a brief visit. But there was a problem: Hordes of other returning servicemen also wanted to get home – and every bus, car, train, and plane headed out of San Francisco was booked solid for the next 30 days.

The fiancée of my father’s shipmate worked for one of the airlines and told Dad that if he would go to the airport, she would find him a ticket out of San Francisco. He waited at the airport for several hours, and finally he was called over to meet Mrs. Park, who was due to depart shortly on a flight to Omaha. Mrs. Park volunteered to give up her seat to my father, who must have looked pretty snappy in his crisp Navy dress uniform. It was her way of thanking this young sailor for defending her country. There was one condition: Dad would need to accompany her young son, Chester, and be responsible for delivering Chester safely to her mother, who would be waiting for him at the Omaha airport.

My father told Mrs. Park they had a deal.

I’ll let Dad take it from here – it’s his story, after all:

“Chester was a young fellow – probably around 10, he could have been 9, he might have been 11. It was clear he knew a lot about planes. I’m not sure what kind of plane we were on – it could have been a C-54. Chester started right away identifying things like the ailerons and other parts of the plane. I was shocked by how much he knew.

“My memory is that we made a stop somewhere – Las Vegas, possibly – and I got off the plane to get a drink at the airport bar. I told Chester to stay on the plane, and I would be right back. When I got back on, he was having a scrap with the stewardess. I heard him tell the stewardess that she better watch out, because his daddy would be back soon. I said to myself, ‘Oh, no, his mother must have told him to tell whoever asks that I’m his daddy.’

“When we arrived in Omaha, Chester and I started looking for his grandparents. There was absolutely nobody who looked like they could be his grandparents. Finally, the terminal had emptied out. Still no grandparents. I began to wonder if someone was playing a trick on me – maybe Mrs. Park was trying to find a home for that boy.

“Now, the next leg of my trip home was in two hours. I had two hours to figure out what to do with Chester. I can still remember debating in my mind, what should I do? Should I leave the boy with a policeman? Should I leave him with the airline? Should I take him with me? If I had had a cellphone, I would have called my own mother and asked her what to do. The one thing I knew for certain was that when my plane took off, I was going to be on it. I was going to leave when that plane took off. The question was: Would Chester be on it with me?

“I agonized about what to do, and I had just made the decision that I was going to take Chester with me.

“I had promised his mother that I would be responsible for him.

“And just as we were getting ready to board the next plane, here come his grandparents! I was never so relieved in my life.”

For 79 years my father has imagined how his life might have changed if no one had shown up to claim Chester. He’s also wondered how Chester’s life turned out. He’s tried looking him up in old San Francisco and Omaha phone books and city directories, but he’s never tried Facebook.

So … Facebook, do your thing! Help my father find out whatever became of Chester Park?