One Family's War: The Wartime Letters of Clarence Bourassa, 1940-1944

Letters written by a Canadian soldier, Private Clarence Bourassa, to his wife over the course of four years provide a vivid and frank look at army life during World War II. Discovered 50 years after they were sent, these letters chronicle the doubts and loneliness Bourassa experienced after enlisting in order to escape the grinding Depression in his small Saskatchewan community and provide his family with badly needed income. Bourassa's heartfelt writings, while often moving, also reveal his shortcomings; speaking of money he owed, he confesses, "I just squandered what I did get on liquor and poker." His candor serves readers particularly well when he recounts his ordeal as a stretcher-bearer during the bloody raid on Dieppe. An introduction provides brief historical context as well as additional background on Bourassa while a postscript, new to this edition, documents the journey made by Bourassa's family to France, where he died in battle and is buried. This work's warts-and-all view of soldiering will be of interest to military historians, while the appeal of epistolary reading %E2%80%93 that sense of looking over someone's shoulder, reading their letters, and being privy to their innermost thoughts%E2%80%94may attract other readers as well. (Mar.)