August 5, 1998

Lang's love letters chronicle WWII

By Garret Leiva
Herald staff writer

      Words helped keep Harry Lang alive. Some were written by flickering candlelight in a dusty, desolate Marine tent, others in a water-filled foxhole on the island of Okinawa. All, however, started with these two simple words: "Dear Ginny"
      It is these words that Traverse City resident and Okinawa survivor, Harry Lang shares in his intimate and dramatic World War II letters to his future wife, Ginny, in a new book titled "Letters of Love and War 1944-1945: A True Story." Letters that depict the paradox of a young Marine struggling to survive a dehumanizing existence while maintaining normal feelings of love for a girl back home.
      While Lang's letters chronicle his first days at Camp Pendleton, Calif. to receiving his orders (to come home) while recovering from injuries at a naval hospital in Honolulu, the story truly begins with a not-so chance encounter back on the family farm in Rochester, Mich.
      Home on a 30 day leave after spending months training as a Marine infantry officer, Lang found himself fixed up on a date with the neighbor's daughter after "indulging" his mother to meet this "sweet and charming young girl."
      "We both shrugged it off thinking, 'when two mothers get together like this, how great can it be?'," remarked Lang, who agreed to meet the 20-year-old junior college student for a brief horseback ride. "But I was overwhelmed. We just clicked immediately."
      For the next three weeks, the pair enjoyed their time together swimming, riding, and playing records. However, the last few days were indeed bittersweet given their growing feelings and the uncertain future that awaited overseas in the Pacific.
      "We started to treasure every day as precious because I was in the infantry as a rifle battalion leader which would put me on the front lines. We recognized the peril of the fact that I might never come back again," said Lang, who noted that he and Ginny made a promise then and there to write one another.
      As a Second Lieutenant Rifle Platoon Leader, Lang reported to Camp Pendleton on the first leg of a journey that would take him to a lonely foxhole on the front lines of Okinawa, where in the bloodiest battle of the Pacific War, 38,000 Americans would be killed or wounded.
      "Your letters, darling, have been coming quite frequently- and as ever they bring me back to feeling human again," writes Lang while sitting in a foxhole dug into the side of a hill.
      These letters from Ginny and his folks back home in Michigan, Lang said, acted as a counterbalance to all the ungodliness of war that constantly surrounded him. Spending 70 days on Okinawa, every day meant a new fox hole to dig and another day of wearing the same shoes, the same socks the same underwear.
      "It really was a great testimonial of what the human body can take. For one day after another we never bathed or shaved and it was real luxury to brush your teeth," Lang said.
      There were, however, greater losses than sleep or clean clothes. During his time on the island Lang saw friends and comrades in arms fall in battle and was himself wounded by the concussion of an Japanese grenade.
      While he tried to spare Ginny and his family the horrific details of the war swirling around him, letter-writing was sometimes the only form of grieving he could allow himself.
      One such letter tells of a close friend, a platoon sergeant, that was struck by a bullet that pierced his eyes during a fierce fire fight with the enemy.
      In his letter Lang writes, "(he) reached down to his wrist and took off his watch, put his arm around me with a hug and said, "Here, Lang, I want you to have my watch. I won't be needing it anymore." My arm went around him. I guess I sobbed."
      As a testimonial to this gesture, Lang's letter to Ginny begins, "I've got to talk to you about friendship, deep friendship among us."
      For Ginny, each of these letters of love and war still carry the weight of the tumultuous times they were written in.
      "They all mean so much to me. Especially the ones talking about how he has to look after his platoon of boys and here he is not much older and yet bearing all this responsibility," recalled Ginny, who still has each letter saved in the same large box.
      Perhaps her favorite, however, was written by her future husband on August 21, 1945, after receiving his orders to return home. A letter written nearly one year after what was only to be a brief horseback ride with the neighbor down the road.
      "Looks like it'll be the end of summer by the time I can kiss you. We'll be able to initiate the arrival of autumn. It will be a beautiful season for us. Saddle up. We'll be riding in the fields again."
      "Letters of Love and War 1944-45: A True Story" is available at Horizon Books and Borders Books in Traverse City and The Bookstore in Frankfort. There will be a booksigning on August 12 from 2 p.m. to 9 p.m. at The Bookstore and on August 23 from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. at Borders Bookstore.