John Emerson Campbell’s letters home during his World War II Naval service in the South Pacific are available locally at Readmore Books in Lima and online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble for $15.99 plus shipping or on Amazon Kindle for $6.99.
John Grindrod/The Lima News
When I first received the book that siblings Scott Campbell and his sister Tracey Campbell Frederick got to print with a huge assist from Scott’s daughter Amy, who typed the manuscript, I thought there was a mistake on the cover of From the South Pacific to the New River, a West Virginia Love Story. Scott had told me it was about his father, John Emerson Campbell, and his Navy experiences aboard the USS Taussig during World War II, and I assumed it to be a third-person account, co-written by Scott and Tracey.
However, once I opened it and began my read, I realized that the author listed at the bottom of the cover, John Emerson Campbell, some 35 years after his death, was indeed the posthumous author.
The book, available in Lima at Readmore Books and on line at Amazon and Barnes and Noble for $15.99, is divided into 54 short chapters, which are the letters he wrote home to Landisburg, West Virginia, to Delphia Mae Wininger, one day, destined to be his wife and the mother of Scott, Tracey and their brother Gregg. The letters are dated between March 27, 1944, and September 7, 1945. Delphia, more commonly known as Del, was just 15 at the time the first letter was written, 10 years younger than John, who was one of 13 children born to William and Nettie Campbell. John was the first of three in his family to join the Navy in February of 1939. He was followed by Herb, four years younger, and Ken, seven years younger.
The first letter in late March of 1944 reveals that Herb and Del had dated back home. Sadly, the letter also details a fatal accident Herb suffered on an aircraft carrier when he was struck by an airplane propeller. It poignantly shows the impact Herb’s death had on John and also expresses deep condolences to Del for the loss she, no doubt, also felt.
While there was no romantic intent in that first letter, it began a back-and-forth correspondence that lasted for the next 18 months. The letters over time began to change in tone, and long-distance feelings began to grow between the two. Despite the 10-year age difference, chemistry was indeed at work.
Over the course of a courtship carried almost entirely by letters, except for a couple of leaves where John was able to get home to the family farm for a few days, the difficulty of navigating both the physical distance of 9,000 miles or so and the distance represented by that 10-year difference in age is pervasive in John’s letters. He often warned Del often that she may be experiencing nothing more than a school girl crush, saying in one letter, “Let’s don’t let a school girl’s romance be your downfall.” He also pointed out that his time in the service and especially in a war zone surrounded by imminent danger had hardened him, so much so that he was unlikely to change what he’d become. And, he also pointed out the uncertainty as to when the war ever would be over.
Nonetheless, despite all those red flags, or should I say ensigns since John was a Navy man, and despite the fact that Del’s letters back to John aren’t in the book, it becomes increasingly evident that there would indeed be a life for them one day.
While the book has special significance to the family and will make a terrific keepsake for the generations of Campbells to come, the book also succeeds on a universal level, since it represents every Army infantryman, every Marine, every Air Force flyboy and every homesick sailor who has faced the perils of war while yearning to be with that special someone at home.
In the final letter, one dated September 7, 1945, John, I thought, summed up most marriages perfectly when he told the girl he would marry a little less than a month after his October return, “We will fight a little, love a lot and, baby, if we have any chance at all, we’ll have a lot of happy days ahead.”
When a brother-in-law in Lima secured John Emerson Campbell upon his return employment at the steel foundry, the couple made the move to Lima just a few short days following their nuptials, and the rest, as the saying goes, is history.
John Grindrod is a regular columnist for The Lima News, a freelance writer and editor and the author of two books. Reach him at [email protected].
