Roy & Carmela

Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, America was precipitously drawn into World War II. And so was 41-year-old Lieutenant Harry Roy Brown when he was called up for active duty on April 14, 1942. His wife, Carmela, and their three sons followed him around the country to various U.S. Army Air bases. Carmela gave birth to their daughter in the Mojave Desert, and the couple said farewell in Riverside, California, when Roy shipped out to Saipan. Carmela then drove her four young children back to Delaware in May 1944. Between May 1944 and his return home in November 1945, Roy wrote letters almost daily to Carmela from the Pacific. As he wrote to Carmela, “One of the things that will keep us together in spirit will be the letters. We must keep them flowing in an unbroken chain.” On one hand, they are indeed love letters; on the other hand, they are historic documents. In writing Roy & Carmela: A World War II Love Story, author Mark Brown, Roy and Carmela’s younge