WCXX

Concord woman finds mysterious POW journal

2:43

CONCORD, N.C. -- A real mystery in unfolding in our own backyard.   A journal, kept by a prisoner of war in Germany, went untouched for 70 years until a Concord mother and daughter decided to do a little spring cleaning.    Private Daniel Rogers Senior never talked much about the war but his daughter says he kept everything.   Twenty years after his death, she didn't think much of finding this old diary and Bible in a drawer at her late mother's home, but 73-year-old June quickly realized this journal belonged to a POW, not her father.    She didn't know it at the time, but on these pages are the words of Lieutenant William Griffin, a Tuskegee Airman who was shot down over Italy in 1944.   June and her daughter Chandra Patterson couldn't get enough of the officer's tales from a POW camp in Barth, Germany.   "I will briefly sketch my life here since, January 15 1944," the journal reads.   "There's some sadness and some laughter in it," June says.   Her daughter chimes in, "It made me cry, every time, because of the suffering. Because I know I couldn't have done it." Especially since Lieutenant Griffin was the only black man in the camp.   "And he says, 'The white soldiers make you stay in the corner.' If my father had wrote this and somebody else found my father's stuff I would want it back," June says.   How her father ended up with the journal is still a mystery.   So Chandra spent the next two weeks after making the discovery contacting researchers online and posting pictures of the journal and Bible. Eventually she found an article written about the Tuskegee Airmen that quoted Lt. William Griffin's daughter.    "So then I got on Facebook and found Gail Obalisi, and it came up Gail Griffin Obalisi."   After a few days of proving she wasn't trying to scam her, Chandra and Gail began trading stories online.   "I started to cry, and every email I get from Gail, I start to cry," Chandra says.   It meant something extra special to June.   "I found her and it was just like my dad was helping her."    This Friday afternoon, after several failed attempts, NBC Charlotte was there as Gail and Chandra connected via FaceTime.   Gail lives in New Jersey.   "You have no idea what this means to me. No idea," Gail tells the Concord residents. "They did the Godly thing and they tried, and they did find us."   June and Chandra are mailing the Bible and journal to her Saturday.    These books are their only discoveries. They also found a piece of processing paper for a lieutenant in Concord, New Hampshire. Again, she has no idea how her father got a hold of it.