LETTERS FROM WORLD WAR II

Hannon’s biography draws on her parents’ correspondence during the Second World War.

This debut has an origin story that’s worthy of a Hollywood movie. When Hannon and her sisters were clearing out the family home after their mother’s death, they found two boxes in Dorothy’s bedroom closet. One was a collection of World War II memorabilia, including documents, news clippings, and photos, and the other was a cache of letters between Dorothy and their late father, George. The two were teenagers together in 1930s Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and they’d only been wed for a brief period in 1943 when George shipped out to England to serve in the U.S. Air Force. “Although neither of them knew at the time,” Hannon writes, “they would not see each other for almost two years, not until the war ended.” In the following pages, she presents their correspondence, including reproductions of Western Union telegrams, letters with marvelous prewar cursive handwriting, and plenty of family photos, mostly in color. Hannon extensively contextualizes the letters, relating everything from day-to-day details of Dorothy’s and George’s lives in the ’30s and the war years to the tense drama of George parachuting out of a burning plane in January 1944 and spending more than a year as a prisoner of war in Germany. The extensive detail creates a compelling picture of the lived experience of the World War II era. Dorothy’s letters to George are particularly winning, as in one dated May 1, 1944, when she was thinking of enjoying spring days with him upon his return: “You know we never had a chance to enjoy spring together, much less fall and winter….Let’s go on picnics and take the car out for nowhere in particular.” Hannon and her siblings should be cheered for so lovingly preserving these records.

An enchanting epistolary account of a wartime love story.