Lines of Battle: Letters from American Servicemen, 1941-1945

by Annette Tapert

Description

Arranged in chronological order, this collection of some 100 letters from soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines offers a very personal view of World War II and a sense of immediacy that is remarkable. The correspondence ranges from a GI's final message, written from Bataan, to a private's advice to his unexpectedly drafted father; from a general's letter of condolence to journalist Ernie Pyle's widow to a marine's revelation to his mother that he lost a leg in battle; from an airman's show more description of the mercy-killing of a comrade trapped in a burning plane to a soldier's reaction to the news of the A-bombings. Several letters are by well-known figures (William Halsey, George Patton, John Kennedy, among them), but these obviously were included for the eloquence of emotion expressed rather than because of the writer's renown. show less

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Letters from WWII servicemen gathered from private and archival collections give a moving account of men at war. Men from all ranks and all branches of the service give open, unguarded, descriptions of "their war" as filtered through their eyes and world-view.

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