Ronald Smith
He signed up for one year. He got 4 ½. And during Harry Lyman Smith’s 1,692 days of military service, he experienced a war story, a love story and an incredible story of four brothers facing extraordinary risks during the biggest and deadliest global conflict ever staged. It all began with Harry’s February 6, 1941, induction into the U.S. Army and ended on September 23, 1945, a little more than a month after Japan’s unconditional surrender brought a close to World War II. Harry’s Army lifestyle and experiences as well as personal highs and lows are detailed on these pages with the help of more than 500 letters written to Ruth Kathyrn Boland, the girl he met six weeks before his induction and continued to court, pen on paper, through the entire duration of the war. Through the letters, Harry recounts two years of training on U.S. soil as well as service on such South Pacific island hotspots as Guadalcanal, New Georgia and Bougainville preceding a D-Day-like invasion of the Philippines. Not lost in the story is the fate of Harry’s three brothers: Max, serving on the front lines in Italy; Charles, serving in Australia and the Philippines, and Alma James, working on troop ships crossing the Pacific Ocean.
