Darling Edith, Dearest Wayne

After a four year courtship, Edith Edwards and Wayne Mackaman were married on November 15, 1941 in Des Moines, Iowa - about as far from the sea as Americans can be. Three weeks later came Pearl Harbor. Wayne enlisted in the US Naval Reserve and began his training in the summer of 1942. Thus began years of painful separation. They kept their love, passion and friendship alive by writing - telling of their daily lives and deep yearning for one another. Edith's letters tell of the action...
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After a four year courtship, Edith Edwards and Wayne Mackaman were married on November 15, 1941 in Des Moines, Iowa - about as far from the sea as Americans can be. Three weeks later came Pearl Harbor. Wayne enlisted in the US Naval Reserve and began his training in the summer of 1942. Thus began years of painful separation. They kept their love, passion and friendship alive by writing - telling of their daily lives and deep yearning for one another. Edith's letters tell of the action on the home front and her love of Wayne. Wayne's letters tell of his desperate need for her and bits and pieces of his "work" as skipper of LCT 290 in North Africa, Italy, England and France.Their letters are augmented by excerpts from the "Papers of Langan W. Swent", fellow LCT officer in the Med whose writings tell the tale that Wayne could not. Censorship forbade any military detail and love of Edith prevented sharing the horrors of war - terror she could only ease through her letters.Read these letters and journal entries, see these photographs and be taken to another place and time - a time not so very long ago, yet a very different world.