"I cannot go anywhere in America without people wanting to share their
wartime experiences....The stories and the lessons have emerged from
long-forgotten letters home, from reunions of old buddies and outfits,
from unpublished diaries and home-published memoirs....As the stories in
this album of memories remind us, it truly was an American experience,
from the centers of power to the most humble corners of the land."
--Tom Brokaw
In this beautiful American family album of stories from the Greatest
Generation, the history of life as it was lived during the Depression
and World War II comes alive and is preserved in people's own words.
Photographs and time lines also commemorate important dates and events.
An Army Air Corps veteran who enlisted in 1941 at age seventeen writes
to describe the Bataan Death March. A black nurse tells of her encounter
with wartime segregation. Other members of the Greatest Generation
describe their war--in such historic episodes as Guadalcanal, the D-Day
invasion, the Battle of the Bulge, and Midway--as well as their lives on
the home front. Starting with the Depression and Pearl Harbor, moving on
through the war years in Europe, in the Pacific, and at home, this
unique book preserves a people's rich historical heritage and the legacy
of a nation's heroism in war and its courage in peace--in the shaping of
their lives and of the world we have today.
