The World War II Letters of William Wellington Taylor, Jr.: Telegram

My Hero

As a young boy my heroes were from books. Fighting men like Captain Horatio Hornblower and Francis Marion "the Swamp Fox" fired my imagination. More than anything I wanted to be like them, strong, brave, and heroic. One day, while rummaging around my father's closet I came upon a large box. Arranged within the box were 5 or 6 dusty, dirty cigar boxes. Inside the boxes were hundreds of old letters. They were numbered, in sequence and in the original envelopes. I opened the first letter and started to read. From that day on, my hero became not Horatio Hornblower or Francis Marion, but Pfc. William Wellington Taylor, Jr., my father. The letters were his letters home from World War II.

NOTE: The letters in this collection appear in reverse order. To read them in chronological order starting with the first letter go to the link at the bottom of this page entitled "Read letters in order starting with Letter 1"