Verdict: “Get it.”
U.S. Air Force veteran Watts offers a microhistory of World War II, as told through his family’s correspondence.
When the author inherited his family’s archive of wartime letters, written during the 1930s and ’40s, he saw the collection as “both a gift and an obligation,” believing that it was his duty to share their stories. Several extended family members are featured in this volume, but the titular focus of the work is Harold Cosby Carleton, the author’s great-uncle, who tragically died while serving as a U.S. soldier in Germany during the war. “Losing Harold was my family’s greatest sacrifice during World War II,” Watts notes, adding that his “death still reverberates within our family.” An introductory essay provides background material on the Carleton and Watts families and contextualizes their experiences within the broader history of the war, but the bulk of the book presents the letters with little editorial commentary beyond dates, names, and the locations where the letters were sent and received. The chronological missives open before the war with a 1934 letter from Harold to his older sister that sets the deeply personal tone for the letters to come as he reflects on the rainy, springtime weather at his home in Asheville, North Carolina. As the letters shift to the war, they provide fascinating glimpses into the experiences of wives, sisters, and mothers on the homefront, as well as those of the family’s male members abroad. Harold’s older brother, Ray, for instance, reflects poignantly in a 1944 letter on the horrors of armed conflict as he recalls seeing friends killed or wounded: “I have been plenty scared and believe that I will continue to be scared until I just get sort of numb,” he writes.
Other letters focus on homesickness, routine colds and backaches, or humorous observations made while in the service. One details the divisions between Catholics and Protestants at Fort Bliss, Texas, and documents the frustrations of a “straightlaced” reverend who “thinks we are a very sinful people.” The unedited nature of the letters, with grammatical and spelling errors intact, offers authenticity, but the notes also retain the occasional use of racial epithets when referring to the Japanese. Such moments, as well as an exoticized description of Japanese firefighters as “weirdly robed men,” could have used more contextualization. However, Watts’ decision to present the correspondence without commentary effectively serves the book’s purpose by providing his late forebears with a venue to relate their experiences in their own words. The volume ends with backmatter that provides a brief biography of Watts’ family members after the war, as well as a family tree that will help readers keep track of the myriad people referenced in the letters. While some of the genealogical research into Watts’ ancestors, which dates back to the 1800s, may have a narrow audience, this is nevertheless an engaging collection, bolstered by nearly 30 pages of family snapshots and wartime photographs.
An intimate portrait of wartime at home and abroad, expressed in personal letters.
July 31, 2026