William J. Camp As we approach Christmas it's a fitting time to honor a soldier who lost his life on the day after Christmas 1944, and the family who still keeps his memory alive. I recently wrote about Norbert Kuchman, a WWII veteran whose postcards I found on e-Bay. I alerted his son, Dave Kuchman, to the cards and he was able to acquire them. The cards were written by Norbert to an old girlfriend during the war and ended up on e-Bay after being sold in an estate sale after she died. William and Marian Camp Dave contacted me recently with a fascinating follow-up to hi ..read more

On Halloween Day 1945, just months after World War II ended, a young U.S. Army captain stationed in Denmark wrote a postcard to his sister Annette back home in Carbondale, Pennsylvania. Sixty-eight years later I found the postcard on e-Bay, and it led me to a remarkable American hero. That Army captain was Al Ungerleider. Sixteen months before writing the postcard he was a 22-year-old lieutenant leading a platoon of men through deadly German fire at Omaha Beach on D-Day.  Despite being wounded twice he continued to lead soldiers of the 29th Infantry Division as they fought their way ac ..read more

In August 1945, after Germany had surrendered but many American soldiers were still in Europe, Staff Sergeant George R. Schnitman sent a postcard to his girlfriend, Rose Silver, in Hartford, Connecticut. The card had a picture of the “Porta Nigra” (black gate), built by the Romans around 200 A.D. in the town of Trier, Germany. The message said: “Honey, You can quickly realize my love for you and my solicitude for your welfare when I highly advise you not to see Laurel and Hardy in ‘The Bullfighters.’ Love, George” The writing struck me as very clever, and my suspicion that George was an ed ..read more

When I can’t locate a family to return a postcard, I keep the card in a box in the hope that I’ll find the family someday. One card, however, found a different home. The card, acquired from e-Bay, was written from North Africa in 1943 by an Army nurse, First Lieutenant Dorothy Parsons, and addressed to Miss Helda Brown in Wolfboro, New Jersey. The photo on the card was an artifact from a museum in Tunisia, and the message indicated that Lt. Parsons had visited the museum. My research determined that Lt. Parsons was from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and graduated from nursing school at Portsmo ..read more

Some of the WWII postcards I come across were written by soldiers to their children. One of them is among the most vexing in my “too tough” pile of mysteries I can’t solve.  The card was written by a sailor, Harold J. Benson, to his daughter, Joan Benson, in New Hampton, New York. It was mailed from New Orleans in 1944. The return address is “LST 718,” and the “Muster Roll” for LST 718 does indeed include Harold J. Benson among the crew in 1944. (“Muster rolls” are lists of military personnel on a Navy ship, and thousands of them are available on Ancestry.com.) From Find A Grave I lea ..read more

A World War II letter I recently found on eBay led me to the story of a star-crossed love affair, a very accomplished woman, and a doll brought from France to a little girl by a handsome young Army officer who wanted to marry her mother. The undated letter was written from France, probably in late 1944 or early 1945, by Army Lieutenant Harold E. Grant and addressed to Inez Varner in Little Rock, Arkansas. It was easy for me to find information about Inez since I had her name and address. She previously had a short-lived marriage and was a single mother to a daughter, Marlo. Lt. Grant, o ..read more