World War II

In this diverse collection of stories derived from interviews, Arkansans who lived through the greatest global conflict of the century relate their experiences and memories with unaffected candor. From those who fought in the Battle of the Bulge and the invasion of Tarawa to those who fed the war machine and labored on the home front, the larger story of World War II is drawn.
 
These accounts reveal individuals who overcame the hardships and tragedies of a violent and rapidly changing world: a sailor witnessing the attack of Pearl Harbor, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s butler who became an officer in one of the U.S. African-American regiments, a family working together in a Japanese-American internment camp, a young man growing up under Nazi domination in Austria, a teletype operator relaying dreaded telegrams of loss, and a German youth imprisoned in Buchenwald who escaped to fight in the Resistance.
 
The frank humanness of these stories distinguishes this book from others that chronicle the war years. Through the voices of the participants, one can begin to understand the immense changes that occurred as the United States emerged from the Great Depression and joined the other Allied forces to win a war of incomparable scale and consequence.