Your Loving Son, Ronie: Letters from the End of WWII

The voices of World War II are almost completely silent 80 years after the war's official end in September 1945. But in this collection of 424 long-lost letters, written between March 1944 and July 1946, we hear the distinctive voice of one young soldier, Corporal Ronald Francis Dick, ring out clearly - by turns exuberant, bored, determined, even philosophical.

Ronie, as the family calls him, quickly matures from a 17-year-old enlistee, rejoicing in milkshakes and struggling with trigonometr...