World War II love letters reveal passionate young man 'I never knew,' daughter writes in new book
Paula Bernice Roberts was swept off her feet by a passionate young World War II hero she met after her parents died.
Her own father.
"He was so romantic and he loved my mother so much," Roberts, who lives in Massachusetts, told Fox News Digital.
"I never knew that man when I was growing up."
She introduces U.S. Army Lt. Paul Roberts to the world in her new book, "Sealed With A Kiss: The World War II Love Letters of Second Lieutenant Paul E. Roberts, 320th Rifle Infantry Regiment, United States Army."
The book is culled from 350 wartime letters the young officer from upstate New York sent to his future bride Bernice Getter.
The couple wed after the war on May 4, 1946, soon after the combat veteran recovered from shrapnel wounds he suffered in Germany in 1945.
"Baby, we’re going to be close together all night, very close," Roberts wrote from Europe to belle Bernice in one 1944 letter, dreaming of his return to the United States.
"Then I’m going to kiss you and hold you all night long. When morning comes we’re just going to ignore it."
The young soldier, 20 years old at the time, signed off with "SWAK" — sealed with a kiss.
The same salutation appears at the end of almost every letter, "except when it was removed by military censors," the daughter said.
Paula Roberts, one of two children and their only daughter, found the letters in an attic trunk while cleaning out her childhood home in Scotia, New York, after her mom died in 2008. Her dad passed away before that, in 2003.
"The man that I knew growing up was not the man who wrote these letters," said Roberts.
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"My mom kept every single one of them. She never showed them to me. She never told me about them."
Lt. Roberts was raised in New York and joined the Army in 1943. He shipped off to Europe in 1944.
The ennui of Army life, the terror of combat and his recovery from war wounds are interspersed with the intimate details of a passionate young man pining for his love.
Some of the letters to his beloved are downright racy — referencing the young couple’s most intimate moments and even her boudoir attire.
"I feel first like talking about black lace, and bedrooms and things like that," Roberts wrote on March 6, 1944.
Yet the same man described the death of his best buddy with the distant stoicism of a combat soldier.
"I don’t feel much like writing tonight, Sweetheart. I got news today that Mike O’Connor was killed in France," reads his letter of Oct. 10, 1944.
"It’s pretty awful when you think about his wife and baby … My feeling like that won’t help matters any, I guess."
The true depth of his feelings for his boyhood buddy was revealed a decade after the war.
He and wife Bernice named their only son Michael in honor of the dead soldier.
Roberts found himself at the sharp end of the Allied advance deep into Germany.
"If anyone ever asks you what I do in the Army, you can tell them I lead an infantry rifle platoon and when you tell them you can be proud of it," he writes on March 22, 1945.
"The men in an infantry rifle platoon are the ones who fire M1 rifles and use bayonets and hand grenades and often fight hand to hand with the enemy. I know it’s true because I’ve done those things with them and when I say I’m a rifle platoon leader I'm darned proud of it."
Roberts was wounded badly six days later, on March 28, when he was hit by shrapnel from an 88MM artillery shell — just six weeks before Germany surrendered.
"He nearly lost his right arm," his daughter said. He spent several months in hospitals in England and the U.S. recovering.
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More than anything, love torn apart by war and distance is the dominant theme of the letters and the book.
"Gosh, I love you, Sweetheart, I think about you all the time, night & day," Roberts writes in another letter.
"As you said, it’s nice to be in love, especially when you know that the one you love, loves you and belongs to you."
That man, Paula Roberts said, never revealed himself to his children.
He was a dutiful father who cared for and provided for his family, Roberts said.
He often worked seven days a week as the owner of a piano store in Schenectady, New York. But he was not outwardly emotional.
The depth of love between her parents was evident, however, even if not spoken, she said.
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The combat veteran was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease at age 42. The family first thought the symptoms were the lingering impact of the nerve damage he suffered during the war.
Roberts lived until age 79, his wife by his side the entire time as the nervous-system disorder grew increasingly worse.
"She kept him going all those years," author Roberts said. "It’s just so beautiful and moving now that I look back on it."
Roberts believes her dad and other World War II veterans were spirited by another kind of love: a love of country and their fellow man. She feels they enjoyed a lifelong blessing that followed the trauma and loss they suffered in their youth.
"Despite all those things, there seemed to be an inner peace within my father," she said.
"Like he knew the rest of his life that he had done something good that helped make the world a better place," she said.
Anyone can find more information about the book "Sealed with a Kiss" on Amazon.
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Original article source: World War II love letters reveal passionate young man 'I never knew,' daughter writes in new book
