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In mid-February 1944 Marian Elizabeth Smith, a young Wisconsin woman, met Marine Corps Lieutenant Eugene T. Petersen on the passenger train, El Capitan, as it made its 42-hour run from Los Angeles to Chicago. After a brief acquaintance, he left the United States to join the Third Marine Division on Guam and eventually to take part in the battle for Iwo Jima in February and March of 1945. The collected letters of their subsequent 18-month correspondence reveal much about wartime life at home and abroad. This correspondence represents a time capsule of current events as Smith and Petersen discuss Franklin Roosevelt, the United Nations, internationalism, popular movies, the French aviator and poet Antoine de St. Exupery, the comic strip Barnaby, and the frustrations of dealing with sometimes less-than- enlightened parents. The loss of Marian's brother during the bombing of Ploesti, Rumania, in June 1944, brought Petersen and Smith closer together, and after hundreds of letters the "chance for love" Marian had suggested early in their correspondence evolved into a marriage that has endured for more than half a century.  

In the midst of the Philippine-American War, twenty-two-year-old Robert Dexter Carter served in Manila as a civilian quartermaster clerk. Through his letters to his family, he provided a vivid picture of army life in Manila—the sights, the smells, and his responses to the native culture. In addition to his letters, his diary and several related articles present a firsthand account of the historic voyage of the United States Army Transport Grant through the Suez Canal to Manila in early 1899. Carter’s writings not only tell of his sometimes harrowing experiences, but also reveal the aspirations and fears of a young man not quite sure of his next steps on life’s journey.

Carter’s father, Robert Goldthwaite Carter, was a war hero and a longtime friend of Maj. Gen. Henry W. Lawton. Carter obtained his position through Lawton’s influence, and his respect for Lawton is clear throughout his writings. A frequent guest in the Lawton home, the young clerk was introduced to many notable figures both military and civilian. Carter’s letters, particularly to his father, are full of news and gossip related to his commander. In other letters, he reveals the kindness and generosity of Mrs. Lawton, who took time to look out for Carter while he was in the hospital and often loaned him books.

This well-researched and expertly edited work casts light on the role of support troops in war, a subject too often minimized or ignored. Shay begins each chapter with an introduction that establishes the setting, the context of events, and the disposition of Carter and his compatriots and provides notes and commentary to place the letters in context. By choosing not to edit the offensive expletives of a sometimes arrogant and racist young man, Shay presents a fully nuanced portrait of a young American exploring the larger world in a time of turmoil.

Enhanced by photographs from collections at the Library of Congress and the Military History Institute, as well as many of Carter’s own whimsical drawings, the book will appeal to armchair historians and scholars alike.

In this fascinating memoir William S. Triplet continues the saga begun in his earlier book, A Youth in the Meuse-Argonne: A Memoir, 1917-1918. After serving in World War I, Triplet chose to become a career military man and entered West Point. Upon graduation in 1924, his assignments were routine—to regiments in the Southwest and in Panama or as an officer in charge of Reserve Officers' Training Corps units or of men sent to a tank school. All this changed, however, when a new war opened in Europe.

From 1940 to1942, Triplet was assigned to the Infantry Board at Fort Benning, Georgia, where he engaged in testing new weapons and machines for the expanding army. He became a full colonel in December 1942. After leaving Benning he received posts with four armored forces: the Thirteenth Armored Division forming in the United States, an amphibious tank and troop carrier group training at Fort Ord, California, and the Second and Seventh Armored Divisions in Europe. His extraordinary abilities as a tank commander became evident in the Seventh Armored, where he took over a four-thousand-man unit known as Combat Command A. He was soon moving from triumph to triumph as he led his unit into Germany. Here was much room for professional judgment and decision, and the colonel was in his element. In the war's last days Triplet and his men fought their way to the Baltic, preventing many German troops from joining in the defense of Berlin against the advancing Soviet army.

Although Triplet was recommended for brigadier general, Dwight D. Eisenhower believed the U.S. Army had enough generals to finish the war; thus, the indomitable Triplet served out the few remaining years of his career as a colonel. After retiring in 1954, Triplet moved to Leesburg, Virginia, where he soon began to mull over his military experiences. Fascinated by the history he had witnessed, engaged by the attraction of writing about it, he recorded his memories with a combination of verve, thoughtfulness, and harsh judgments concerning ranking officers he considered incompetent— generals not excluded.

Through his annotations, Robert H. Ferrell provides the historical context for Triplet's experiences. Well written and completely absorbing, A Colonel in the Armored Divisions provides readers the rare opportunity to see firsthand what a real professional in the U.S. Army thought about America's preparation for and participation in the war against Germany and Japan.

In this vivid memoir, Laxalt recalls his service during WWII as a code officer in the Belgian Congo. In this remote jungle outpost, a secret war was being fought for control of the world’s future. Deep in the Congo lay a mine that produced a little-known substance called uranium, and for reasons no one then understood, the Allies and the Germans were struggling ferociously to control this mine and its ore. The cloth edition is a limited numbered, signed edition.

In the summer of 1917 three Wisconsin National Guard companies came together to form the 150th Machine Gun Battalion of the now famous 42nd “Rainbow” Division. As true comrades, they relied on one another for support as they fought in every major battle of the American Expeditionary Forces, including the landmark battle of Chateau Thierry, which cost the unit dearly. As one of Wisconsin’s most celebrated units, a soldier coming from the battalion was selected to represent the state at the unveiling of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Washington, D.C., in 1921. Today, the 150th is all but forgotten, in part because their unit history was never written. Through letters, diaries, and other recollections, Larson tells us the story of these Guardsmen’s experiences. He traces the path of their wartime service and considers the impact of war’s trauma and tedium on their lives.

When he took ship for France in the spring of 1918, Horace Baker was ill prepared for war. A private in the American Expeditionary Forces, the unassuming Mississippi schoolteacher joined the renowned Thirty-second Division and learned his soldiering skills from men who’d already fought in the Aisne-Marne offensive. Before long, he was to put those skills to use in the largest and most costly battle ever fought by the U.S. Army.

This poignant memoir recalls the great battle of the Meuse-Argonne, an epic conflict waged by well over a million men that saw casualties of 26,277 killed and 95,786 wounded. Many books have been written about General Pershing’s planning of the offensive; this one tells what happened to the soldiers who had to carry out his orders.

The Thirty-second was a shock division made up largely of National Guard units—farm boys from the Upper Midwest. But as casualties mounted, replacements were rushed into battle with little training—and devastating results. Baker knew friends and tent mates who were alive one day, dead the next, and he kept track of the battle in diary entries tucked into his Bible—and made evasively short in case of capture.

He shares his and his comrades’ thoughts about fighting in a harsh climate and terrain, relates their ongoing problems with short supplies, and tells how they managed to overcome their fears. It is a straightforward narrative that doesn’t glorify battle or appeal to patriotism yet conveys the horrors of warfare with striking accuracy. Historian Robert Ferrell’s new introduction puts Baker’s recollections in the context of the larger theater of war.

Baker fleshed out his diary in a book that saw limited publication in 1927 but has remained essentially unknown. Argonne Days in World War I is a masterpiece brimming with insight about the ordinary doughboys who fought in the European trenches. It conveys the spirit of a man who did his duty in a time of trouble—and is a testament to the spirit shared by thousands like him.

It was a cold, gray morning in northeast France when Pfc. Silvestre Herrera's unit came under heavy fire from a Nazi artillery barrage. Armed with only a hand grenade and his M1 rifle, Herrera fixed his bayonet and mounted a one-man charge, single-handedly capturing eight German soldiers, then killing two more and pinning down the enemy despite having had both feet blown off by a mine. A few months later he was back home in Phoenix when the telegram arrived notifying him that he was to be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. Herrera was just one of Arizona's sons and daughters who answered their country's call in World War II. Their exploits—and the adventures of those on the home front—are now celebrated in a book that brings that era engagingly to life.

Arizona Goes to War takes readers back to a time when military installations sprang up all over the state as thousands of airmen arrived to train in Arizona's clear desert skies, and when soldiers destined for North Africa came to get their first taste of desert sands. In its pages, readers will learn not only of the green recruits who passed through Arizona, but also of the state's Native Americans who registered for the draft in record numbers, of Japanese Americans unjustly incarcerated in desert detention centers, and of ordinary citizens who did their bit for the war effort. Included in the book are some of World War II's most incredible stories, such as the testing of tank engines in Arizona dust storms for the North Africa campaign, the interrogation of Japanese consular diplomats from Honolulu at the Triangle T Guest Ranch near Dragoon, and the escape of 25 German POWs from a detention camp outside of Phoenix—called the greatest escape by Axis prisoners from a U.S. compound during the war. A separate chapter pays tribute to Arizona's war heroes: not only Silvestre Herrera, but also fighter ace Grant Turley, Midway hero John C. Butler, and Pima Indian Ira Hayes, who helped raise the flag on Iwo Jima. A host of profiles and sidebars bring people and events of the wartime era to life, and a useful appendix provides a traveler's guide to Arizona's World War II sites.

World War II may have transformed Arizona more than it did any other state; not only did Arizona's industry blossom, its population did as well when servicemen who had been stationed there returned to put down stakes. Arizona Goes to War recaptures the glory and spirit of that era and reminds us that the people who lived through those years are well worth commemorating.

In the quiet of morning, exactly six months after Pearl Harbor, the Japanese touched down on American soil. Landing on the remote Alaska island of Attu, they assailed an entire village, holding the Alaskan villagers for two months and eventually corralling all survivors into a freighter bound for Japan.
One of those survivors, Nick Golodoff, became a prisoner of war at just six years old. He was among the dozens of Unangan Attu residents swept away to Hokkaido, and one of only twenty-five to survive. Attu Boy tells Golodoff’s story of these harrowing years as he found both friendship and cruelty at the hands of the Japanese. It offers a rare look at the lives of civilian prisoners and their captors in WWII-era Japan. It also tells of Golodoff’s bittersweet return to a homeland torn apart by occupation and forced internments. Interwoven with other voices from Attu, this richly illustrated memoir is a testament to the struggles, triumphs, and heartbreak of lives disrupted by war.