Throughout the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s, thousands of U.S. airmen flew covert missions to probe weaknesses in Russian radar and electronic defenses and to photograph military bases, missile silos, and similar installations in the Soviet Union and other potentially hostile nations. In 1956 Naval Cdr. Jack Sweeney, a veteran of both World War II and the Korean War, patrolled for Soviet submarines in the Atlantic along America’s East Coast. Ten years earlier he had been stationed in Saipan and China as part of a military presence working to stabilize the region after World War II. “I’m certainly glad I figured out I was in love with you,” Lt. Sweeney wrote to his future wife, Marie “Beebe” Mathewson, back in Coronado, California. “It explains a lot of queer things that have been puzzling—for instance, why I think of you most of the day and dream about you most of the night and why I’m so eager to return to the States.” Mathewson and Sweeney first met in late December 1945 and spent a mere ten days together before he was off to the Pacific, and for the next seven months they courted by letter. “It seems incredible I could miss anyone so much that I’ve only known for a couple of weeks,” Sweeney wrote. “But I do.” One month before he returned to the United States, Sweeney was desperate to hear Mathewson’s voice, and he contacted her by telephone. He discovered, however, that international phone calls were not all they were cracked up to be.
Monday, June 3.
Dearest Beebe,
Just got back from that confoosin but very amoosin’ trans-oceanic coast-to-coast Sweeney-to-Mathewson telephone conversation. I don’t know what we said, but I got a big bang out of whatever it was. My shorthand expert was along and took it all down for the newspapers and here’s what came off, according to her him:
Operator: Go ahead
Jack: Hello—Beebe?
Beebe: What?
Jack: Hello—is that you, Beebe?
Beebe: Okay.
Operator: You have one minute left.
Jack: What happened to the first four minutes?
Jack: I think you’re the most wonderful girl I’ve ever known, and I adore you, honey
Beebe: Huh?
Jack: I said how much weight have you gained?
Operator: What?
Beebe: Why, you—gribble smock diffuser gamble sweater.
Jack: What did you say about the sweater?
Beeb: Huh?
Jack: Are you mad at me?
Beebe: Naturally.
Operator: Yer five minutes is up. Tell ’er goodbye.
Jack: Huh?
Operator: Goodbye, Beebe. (Hangs up.) That’ll be $734.26, Mr. Sweeney.
(end of conversation)
Well, that’s the last time I’ll spend $734.26 on a trans-oceanic phone call, even to you. Unless something big comes up. I could hear you fairly well, but you weren’t receiving me. I’d say something clever as the dickens, and you’d ask for a repeat, and by the third time I’d said it, I’d decide it wasn’t funny after all, and off I’d go on another tack. But all in all, I enjoyed it a lot and it was swell hearing you again. That was the shortest five minutes I ever saw. Next time I’ll ask for ten.
I wish that mail would start coming again. I feel as if I haven’t heard from you in several months.
All my love,
Jack
In July 1946, Sweeney and Matthewson were married in Coronado. Sweeney attended the Air Force Command and Staff School at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama, and eventually joined Patrol Squadron Forty-nine. By 1956 Sweeney, Beebe, and their four young sons—John (age seven), Bill (five), Al (three), and Dan (one)—were all living at the Hamilton Air Force Base in Bermuda. Although Cdr. Sweeney’s reconnaissance patrols were not considered terribly dangerous, they were not without risk. Sweeney wanted Beebe to know that, should the unthinkable happen, his life could not have been more joyful or fulfilling because of her and their children. (Undated, the letter is believed to have been written in early November 1956.)
To the best wife a man ever had:
Honey, I am writing this letter to you to say a few things that I might leave unsaid if I should depart this world unexpected-like. In this flying business you never can tell when you might all of a sudden get mighty unlucky and wake up dead some morning.
I suppose this shows me up for the old sentimental fool I have always been, but I thought if I could make sure you know how I feel about such things it might be a little comfort to you.
First of all, let’s face one fact—everybody ends up dead. Think of all the infants and children and people who had the misfortune to die before they got very much of anything out of life, and then think of all I got out of it.
Even if I should die the day after writing this, I still claim I am one of the luckiest people who ever lived, and you know it. I’ve got a lot to live for, as I write this, but when I count up all the blessings I’ve had, I can see that I have already lived a lot. When you come right down to it, I’ve done just about everything I’ve wanted to do and seen about everything I’ve wanted to see. Sure, I’d like to stick around while the boys are growing up, and to have fun with you again when we have time after they grow up. But you and I agree so closely on how to raise a family, the boys are going to be all right; I’m sure of that. And I’ve had enough fun with you to last anybody a lifetime.
Don’t let the memories of me keep you from marrying again, if you run across somebody fit to be your husband, which would be hard to find, I know. But you’re much too wonderful a wife and mother to waste yourself as a widow. Life is for the living. (That’s not original, I’m sure.)
So get that smile back on your face, put on some lipstick and a new dress, and show me what you can do toward building a new life. Just remember me once in a while—not too often, or it’ll cramp your style, you know—and as long as I’m remembered, I’m not really dead. I’ll still be living in John, and Bill, and Al, and Dan, bless their hearts. That’s what they mean by eternity, I think.
My love as always,
Jack
Astonishingly, this was Cdr.Jack Sweeney’s last letter; he and his crew were killed on November 9 when their plane went down in the Atlantic for reasons that are still unknown. Beebe Sweeney was pregnant with their fifth child when Jack was killed. A beautiful girl, Emma, was born in March 1957.