Searching for Harold

About

At 1100 AM the pubs are opened. By 1120 the days quota of scotch has been sold – by 1135 the beer is sold – by 1145 the whiskey is sold out – the rum and gin hold out quite a bit longer. The Australians blame all such shortages on the Yankees. Not being a Yankee, naturally I am not to blame.

North Carolinian Ray Carleton,
Camp Strathpine, Queensland, Australia, 1943

For a family divided by war but united through mail, what happens if the letters stop?

As World War II ravages the globe, one scattered American family is held together by ink, paper, and hope. Harold Carleton is in Europe with one of his brothers; another is in the jungles of the Pacific islands; a nephew is training pilots in Texas; his brother wants to leave school and join the fight.
At home, those left behind face a quieter battle against rationing, anxiety, and the suffocating weight of the unknown. The mailbox becomes a lifeline; it’s the only link to the boys they love. Every letter feels like a victory; every silence, a haunting threat. Which will arrive next: the US Post Office with a treasured letter, or Western Union with a dreaded telegram?
Searching for Harold is the poignant, intimate portrait of a family caught in the crosswinds of history’s greatest conflict, told through the letters that kept their hopes alive.

Author

The child of an Air Force family, Stephen Watts was born in West Germany. He is the grandnephew of Harold Carleton.
Stephen began organizing his family’s genealogical files, tracing his lineage, and transcribing the family correspondence in 1996. His English immigrant great-great-grandfather’s correspondence inspired his first book, the award-winning Searching for Charles, published in 2022.
Stephen grew up to serve in the Air Force himself. After nine years, he left to begin a three-decade career in the insurance industry before retiring in Georgia, where he lives with his still-tolerant wife, Karin.