Red Letter Days

The correspondence of Cameron James Warren:
A Montanan comes of age during WWII

Red Letter Days Slip Back

Compiled and edited by Beverly Warren-Leigh.

916 pages, two volumes, hard-bound with linen cover, in slipcase.

$100.00

Signed and numbered limited edition.
ISBN 978-1-4243-2814-7

To buy a book, email the author: bevw@timepreserved.com

Description

This story of a young Montana forester, called to war in Europe as an Army tank commander in the early 1940s, Red Letter Days Slip Front is a tale told principally through a sheaf of 400 carefully preserved letters, clippings, maps and V-mail messages. Packed with history and comment, the narrative follows Cameron Warren and the 2nd Armored “Hell on Wheels” tank division through North Africa, Sicily, Normandy and on roads into Nazi Germany as the conflict wore on. To his mother, his father, his brother, his sweetheart, Cam faithfully wrote, to assure them of his safety, bring them news, offer observations about a soldier’s duty, ask questions about life at home. And they wrote back. The dialogue that resulted is many things:

Red Letter Days Inside 1

  • A mirror of American history in a troubled period.
  • A young man’s coming of age among cultures not his own.
  • A study of a mother burdened with worry about her son, and a father proud of his exploits.
  • A look at authentic maps of battlefields.
  • A view of unassuming heroism.
  • A shocked reporting of terror and lives lost at the front.
  • A flowering of love between Cameron and a southern belle named Carol.

Red Letter Days Inside 4 Beverly Warren-Leigh, Cameron’s youngest daughter, promised her father late in his life that she would see his story, and these letters that gave it base, into light. It has taken her 10 years of research to do so, but she has completed the task. The portrait that emerges — of the man, his values, his family, his challenges, and the times — is real, is stirring, is wonderful.