gregory van tassell

Michael Turner has just buried his uncle Oscar at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond Virginia and said farewell to the mysterious, unrevealing character he grew up with. After the funeral, his mother June reveals a poignant, enthralling tale of his uncle that he never could have imagined. In a meticulous portrait of the times it is the story of infantryman Oscar and Navy Nurse Bess during the last chaotic years of World War Two. Their paths cross during training and they fall passionately in love, despite the forbidden nature of their officer-GI romance. Against all regulations, their love blossoms on the West Coast and in lush, marshal law Hawaii until Oscar sails toward the perils of Philippine jungles and Bess waits and prays for his safe return as she serves at Bremerton Naval Hospital along the shore of Washington State.

In this novel of love and war, Oscar fights savagely against suicidal Japanese defenders while Bess ministers to the physical and emotional trauma of marines and sailors arriving from the same battlefields as the man she loves. During their trials they hold on to a future together when the fighting stops. June serves alongside Bess and shares their fears and dreams as the war nears its end in the shattering Battle of Okinawa that Oscar barely survives and which tests the strength of Oscar’s and Bess’s love.

This tale of love’s hope is told through the prospective of Michael as he searches through Oscar’s secret wartime journal, Bess’s and his family’s letters, and the memory of his aging mother for the lost uncle, the uncle he never knew.