Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, America was precipitously drawn into World War II. And so was 41-year-old Lieutenant Harry Roy Brown when he was called up for active duty on April 14, 1942. His wife, Carmela, and their three sons followed him around the country to various U.S. Army Air bases. Carmela gave birth to their daughter in the Mojave Desert, and the couple said farewell in Riverside, California, when Roy shipped out to Saipan. Carmela then drove her four young children back to Delaware in May 1944.

Between May 1944 and his return home in November 1945, Roy wrote letters almost daily to Carmela from the Pacific. As he wrote to Carmela, “One of the things that will keep us together in spirit will be the letters. We must keep them flowing in an unbroken chain.” On one hand, they are indeed love letters; on the other hand, they are historic documents.

In writing Roy & Carmela: A World War II Love Story, author Mark Brown, Roy and Carmela’s youngest son, put together a history of the U.S. war against Japan from Roy’s unique perspective in Saipan. This book provides an insight into the history of World War II in the Pacific in a way that has never been told.

Roy was an air ordnance officer responsible for keeping B-29s armed during the most intense air war ever waged. He shared his astute observations on every aspect of the war in the Pacific—from politics to public health. He had strong opinions about the morality of dropping the atomic bombs. He was shot at from the ground and from the air, almost died of dengue fever, and was on the line sixteen hours a day for a year. Through all of this, Roy kept his equanimity and was able to record for history his love for Carmela and their children, the insanity of war, and his fears for mankind. The lessons we learn from Roy and Carmela are hauntingly prescient today.