During our research we looked at varying primary and secondary sources from WWII. “Letters Home” from the Hoover Institution follows the relationship of Natalie Bellantoni’s and Irene Sztucinski through love letters sent during Nat’s three years of deployment. “Letters from WWII” from the National WWII Museum shows letters from young couples around Christmas of 1942 with hopes of coming home in the new year. These articles are examples of how the disgusting details of war were often hidden by the soldiers sending letters home.
Another source that was found during research was the blog post “Chaos and Censorship in the Second World War”. This source details how the British government created the Ministry of Information to censor information about WWII and how it backfired. This example of censorship exemplifies how censored information caused issues between levels of government as well as people on a personal level.
One more source explored was “Censorship During Wartime” from The Beehive. This source shows examples of letters where information has been blotted out, with the context letters explained. These letters exemplify how the soldiers felt and how they were affected by the censorship. “Letters of Soldiers from WWII ” explores the perspective of the Germans through letters. The letters in this source are the most graphic, describing the death and conditions that the Germans dealt with. This adds a level of depth to the reality of war that was expressed through letters.
To summarize, “War Letters” by Jeanne Yamonaco found that 20% of letters from WWII were written about love and combat. All of our sources above focus on these two things, so this source is further evidence how soldiers wrote about the horrors they were going through, or what they were hoping to come back to.
