Outskirts Press, INC.

MY FATHER’S “TREASURED” LETTERS

My father, Charles A. (Chuck) Welsh, is the sailor who penned the 400-plus letters summarized in the book. He was 32 years old and married with three children when he enlisted in the Navy in early 1944. A correspondent with the Associated Press and an accomplished journalist, he wrote home almost every day. The letters run the gamut from love letters to travelogues to battle descriptions. They relate the story of a sailor during war time - an ordinary seaman who's a husband and a father. They depict the struggle of an older man in a young man's war. They tell about life aboard ship - the routine, the monotony, the relationships with fellow sailors, the frightening storms, the rigors of battle and fear. They portray happenings on the home front when responding to my mother's letters. "Treasures from the Attic" showcases Dad's journalistic talent when he writes about his love of family, boot camp, a cross-country train trip, a typhoon, a battle, the atomic bomb, V-J Day or just a day in the life of an ordinary seaman.

"Four fighters were attacking a gun placement," he writes one day in Okinawa. "Four went in and only three came out. It seemed to all of us that we had lost a friend, that pilot who never came out."