The Lost Soldier
The Ordeal of a World War II GI from the Home Front to the Hürtgen Forest
By (author) Chris J. Hartley
Publication date:
01 October 2018Length of book:
352 pagesPublisher
Stackpole BooksISBN-13: 9780811737791
The Lost Soldier offers a perspective on World War II we don’t always get from histories and memoirs. Based on the letters home of Pete Lynn, the diary of his wife, Ruth, and meticulous research in primary and secondary sources, this book recounts the war of a married couple who represent so many married couples, so many soldiers, in World War II. The book tells the story of this couple, starting with their life in North Carolina and recounting how the war increasingly insinuated itself into the fabric of their lives, until Pete Lynn was drafted, after which the war became the essential fact of their life. Author Chris J. Hartley intricately weaves together all threads—soldier and wife, home front and army life, combat, love and loss, individual and army division—into an intimate, engaging narrative that is at once gripping military history and engaging social history.
Chris Hartley succeeds mightily in penetrating through the heavy mist of time to tell the remarkable life-and-death story of one American soldier in World War II. Anyone who wants to know something of war's profound effect on soldiers and their families should read this book.