FATHERS & DAUGHTERS

Mary Williams Walsh’s “War and Remembrance” (May 22) must strike a chord in anyone who has tried to communicate with a father who, though loved, remains mysterious. The piece captures in a natural, understated way the connection--and lack of connection--between the generations. The backdrop of Normandy makes more poignant her perception that “life doesn’t work out like an Italian opera.”

JEAN EGGENSCHWILER

Manhattan Beach

Thank you for “War and Remembrance,” a warm and touching story. As a 70-year-old veteran of the World War II battles of the South Pacific, and as the father of an equally wonderful, loving daughter, I was quite moved by it.

Perhaps such splendid, kind and caring children are our greatest victory for the service we performed in that war.

DANIEL P. BYRNES

Pacific Palisades

My unit, as did Thomas Edward Walsh’s, sailed across the English Channel to Le Havre to reach the battlefields of France. In late December, 1944, during the Battle of the Bulge, I was captured and taken to a German prisoner-of-war camp near Hanover.

Discouraged and hungry, I took a walk one morning up to the main gate of the camp. Suddenly, the loudspeaker burst forth with a phonograph recording of Bing Crosby singing Irving Berlin’s “Blue Skies.” When I heard Bing’s marvelous voice, my morale perked up and I knew then I could make it through to the end of the war.

After we were liberated, our packed American troopship sailed across the Atlantic and entered New York Harbor. In the distance, I could see the uplifted torch on the arm of the Statue of Liberty. It’s a memory I will never forget.

KENNETH LLOYD LARSON

Los Angeles

Reading “War and Remembrance” stirred memories for me. I, too, was at Norfolk House, only I was there in October, 1942, before the North Africa landings, and in January, 1944. I was a stenographer and typed many of the planning papers for Operation Overlord.

My recollections of the buzz-bomb terror over London are vivid. I counted 70 flying over the city in one day. Once a bomb landed in the street near our quarters in the Sloane Square area. It hit just at breakfast call, when many of the staff were boarding trucks to go eat. More than 50 were killed. I was fortunate in that I was on my way out but had not left the building.

JOHN M. TRUDGEON

Rancho Cucamonga

Just a minor correction in “War and Remembrance.” The Mauretania, not Mauritania, was built for Cunard White Star by Cammel Laird and requisitioned for government service in 1940. It was named after an ancient district from Roman times that included most of the present northern Morocco and western Algeria. This was not the same as the modern Mauritania of northwest Africa.

DEAN W. TERLINDEN

Long Beach