'I can feel him here': Missing World War II bomber jacket finds its way home

(KATU) – A World War II leather bomber jacket that was left behind at a bar in Tacoma, Washington, in the early 1950s has finally found its way home.

After no one returned to claim it, a man took it home to his 5-year-old nephew named Pat Nesbitt who was undergoing treatment for polio at the time.

Pat had a passion for all war memorabilia. World War II ended in 1945 and Pat had many family members who were in the military.

The jacket became one of Pat’s most prized possessions. It belonged to a man by the name of First Lt. Miles F. Blum.

Pat knew it because the name was stenciled inside the lining the jacket.

Pat grew up in northern Idaho and there were many snow days where he would put the jacket on and sled down the hill, fearless.

“When my uncle gave me the jacket, from 10 years old to 18, I put on the jacket because it gave me superpowers," he said. "If he could do 40 missions in that jacket, I could sled down the cliff, and I did. Most people could come back after 25, but he didn’t. This guy was a superhero, and this is a jacket a superhero would wear.”

Blum flew many of those missions in that jacket; 40 bombs are stamped on the outside of it.

Pat now lives in Molalla, Oregon. He held on to that special piece of history for seven decades and took great care and pride in it.

“I oiled it, replaced the cuffs and the zipper. My biggest goal was to find somebody who would appreciate it as much as I did and eventually give it back to the family,” he said.

Fast forward to February 2022. Pat knew it was time to begin looking for a family member of Miles F. Blum to pass it on to.

So, he enlisted the help of a friend, Jerry Ferguson. Jerry was tech savvy and already planning the pair’s 50th high school reunion in Oregon and that required going online to search for members of their class.

Jerry got started, looking for Miles’s relatives on ancestry.com. It took just 45 minute and Jerry had found Miles Blum’s only living relative, his daughter, Teri Sargent, in Bella Vista, Arkansas.

Teri was overjoyed to receive the news from a stranger about a jacket worn by her beloved father. Teri’s dad died in a car crash when she was just 14 years old.

“My dad and I were joined at the hip. When he coached the church softball team, I was the bat girl. When he went to Dodger games, I went with him. We were very much alike, and I loved my dad a lot,” she said.

Until Teri was contacted by Jerry Ferguson over email in mid-February, she did not know the jacket even existed. Then to hear the stories about how it was found at a bar in Tacoma, where her dad was once stationed while serving in the military, she knew this encounter was nothing short of a miracle.

"He flew B24 bombers in that jacket. He flew 40 missions in that jacket. He was all over Europe, France, and Germany,” Teri said.

After exchanging many emails and telephone calls over a couple of weeks, Pat and Teri decided the jacket would be returned to her so she could, as Pat says, “cherish it as much as I did.”

The week of March 1, a package showed up for Teri.

“We have had sleet and snow up here in the Ozarks. I opened the door, and the sun was shining, and the box was on the front doorstep,” she said.

She waited a few days to open the box, reflecting on the emotions of the past few weeks. Memories of her father were flooding back to her.

“He was a great father. That is how I knew him, as my dad just mowing the lawn, coaching teams, a Boy Scout leader. But I have gone back through now and see him as a hero. I learned a whole other side of him. I was proud of him as a kid. But I see where he has been. This whole thing made me look at him in a different light and makes me love him even more,” she said.

While on a live Zoom call with KATU producers, Teri mustered the courage to open the box containing her dad's beloved war jacket, the jacket she was unaware of until a couple of weeks ago when a stranger reached out to her.

“Boy, it is folded up carefully in here. Return address is Molalla, Oregon. Hi Daddy, you are home. Thank you, Pat. I can feel him here. He is here,” Teri said.

Teri studied every inch of that jacket. She says she will cherish it as long as she lives and hopes to put it into a military museum someday, along with other war memorabilia from her father’s military service.

“I now realize it gave my dad strength through the war and it gave Pat strength through his life. I am so grateful they were able to contact me and get this back into my life,” she said.