"Last night Mel and I were talking about some of the adjustments
we'll have to make to our husbands' return. I must admit I'm not
exactly the same girl you left-I'm twice as independent as I used
to be and to top it off, I sometimes think I've become 'hard as
nails'. . . . Also--more and more I've been living exactly as I
want to . . . I do as I damn please."
These tough words from the wife of a soldier show that World War
Ii changed much more than just international politics.]
"From a fascinating collection of letters, filled with wonderfully
distinctive human stories, Judy Barrett Litoff and David C. Smith
have shpaed a rare and brilliant book that transports the reader
back in time to an unforgettable era."--Doris Kearns Goodwin,
author of "The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys" and "Lyndon Johnson
and the American Dream."
"This is a wonderful volume, full of admirable women struggling
in a difficult situation, doing their best for their families and
their country. Ah, the memories it brings back Highly recommended
for those who lived through the war, and for those who want to
understand it."--Stephen E. Ambrose, author of "Eisenhower and
D-Day, June 6, 1944."
"Offering a remarkable view into the lives of ordinary women
during wartime, this book will enlighten and catch at the hearts of
general readers and cause historians to reconsider how women
experienced World War II."-Susan M. Hartmann, authro of The Home
Front and Beyond. other?]
"From among 25,000 of an estimated six billion letters sent
overseas during World War II, Litoff and Smith have culled and
skillfully edited a sampling by 400 American women. These letters,
starting with one to a seaman wounded at Pearl Harbor, are
compelling documents of hom-dront life in varied ethnic, cultural,
and financial milieus. Tragic, touching, and funny, the
correspondence is full of prosaic news and gossip about jobs and
neighbors, along with accounts of births and intimate allusions to
love-making. The stress of separation was intensified for women
whose loved ones were hospitalized, or imprisoned as either
conscientious objectors or security risks. Some women wrote General
MacArthur and others for news of missing men or to obtain details
of their deaths. Many of these heartrending documents also express
acceptance-and even pride-in the sacrifices required by
war."--"Publishers Weekly."
"Other scholars of WW II have published letters written home by
servicemen, but this is the first collection sampling the letters
written by sisters, sweethearts, wives, and mothers, saved by
thousands of servicemen. Chapters are organized around themes that
were important to these women: courtship, marriage, motherhood,
work, sacrifices. . . . What women tell readers in these letters
about their concerns and their wartime feelings will cause
historians readers?] to rethink what has been written about the
homefront."--"Choice."
"Despite the popular appeal of Rosie the Riveter, nine out of
ten mothers with children under six were not in the labor force,
which helps to account for the vast outpouring of mail from the
home front to 'our boys' in the European and Pacific theaters. Some
couples wrote every day for four years. This is the rich historic
documentation that the authors have drawn upon to create a
panoramic pastiche of indefatigable, enrgetic, patriotic female
letter writers in the war years. . . . One is struck by the
hard-headed praticality of many of the letters-stories of plucky,
sometimes even grumpy, coping. There are letters of growing
independence, with strong and at times explicit indication that the
boyfriend or husband will be facing a very different woman upon his
return from the one he 'knew' when he disembarked for his own,
often terrible, venture. . . . Every war leaves mothers with broekn
hearts. What this volume most remarkably demonstrates is just how
prepared American women on the home front were for that dread
eventuality."--Jean Bethke Elshtain in the "Journal of American
History."
"Fascinating and often heartbreaking letters. . . . The letters
illuminate a time when sex roles were first showing the changes
that would culminate in the women's movement. 'I must admit I'm not
exactly the same girl you left, ' Edith Speert wrote to her
husband, Victor, in 1945. 'I'm twice as independent as I used t be,
and I sometimes think I've become hard as nails. I don't think my
changes will affect our relationship.'. . . In the end, it is the
small human dramas in these letters that stand out. Anne Gudis,
miffed to distrcation by her soldier-swain Sam Kraaamer, writes
what may be the shortest Dear John on record: 'Mr. Kramer: Go to
hell With love, Anne Gudis.' A woman working at a Honolulu
nightclub assures a pilot that she'll wait for him-until she's 20.
The wife of an Air Corps navigator reads in a news story that only
15 of 1,500 Allied bombers were lost in a riad over Europe and
later learns that her husband died in one of the 15. And a grieving
mother whose son died in the Pacific asks Gen. Douglas MacArthur,
in desperation, 'Please general he was a good boy, wasn't he? Did
he die a hard death?'"--"Smithsonian."
"'They made it possible for me to retain my sanity in an insane
world, ' wrote one pilot about the ltters his wife sent him
throughout World War II. The letters contained in this collection
explain the soldier's sentiments. Whether full of passionate
longing for a missing sweetheart or merely detailing domestic
gossip, the letters offer a rich introduction to how American women
experienced the war. Since military authorities ordered soldiers
not to keep any letters written them by their loved ones, the
authors have done a magnificent service in obtaining letters that
soldiers either surreptitiously hid or whose authors copied them
before sending them on."--"Library Journal."
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