Letters from Dolph

In late January 1945, Lt. Adolph "Dolph" Bennett kissed his wife Jean goodbye at a train station in Hartford, Connecticut. They had been married less than a year. He was shipping overseas to join the fight against Nazi Germany; she would remain stateside, serving as an Ensign in the Navy WAVES.

What followed was an extraordinary correspondence — 146 letters spanning 16 months, from Dolph's departure through his Atlantic crossing, his time in combat (including being wounded by shrapnel near Wadern, Germany), V-E Day, the long months of occupation, and finally his journey home.

These letters capture history at its most intimate: the boredom of replacement depots, the beauty of Scotland, the devastation of Le Havre, the joy of V-E Day, and the profound horror of the Holocaust witnessed firsthand in displaced persons camps. They document a young Jewish-American officer's journey through the very heart of Nazi Germany, culminating in his visit to Hitler's bunker exactly one year after the dictator's death.

But above all, they are love letters — full of longing, hope, poetry, and the determination to build a life together once the war was over.