Living on Memories

Lynne Oakes's book Living on Memories tells the moving story of her parents Robert and Frances Brown Oakes: it is both a love story and a World War II memoir. For decades World War II scholarship focused mainly on military campaigns, commanders and political leaders, diplomatic maneuvers, and the miracles of wartime industrial production. Recently, historians have widened their lens to include the experience of the millions of ordinary civilians who had endured the privations of the Great Depression and then set aside their individual aspirations and answered the call to defend freedom around the world.

Combining Frances' teenage diary and Bob's wartime letters with her own contextual narrative, Oakes presents revealing and engaging pictures of high school life in a small Indiana town, her parent's courtship, Bob's passion for flying, the rigors of military training, the horrors of combat on a B-17bomber in the Fifteenth Air Force, and his ordeal as a German prisoner of war.

Living on Memories is a fascinating account of one couple that lived through the tragedy of World War II. But its significance lies not in its uniqueness but in the commonness of its story among the Greatest Generation.

Carl E. Kramer. Ph.D. and Mary Kagin Kramer. M.S.

Kramer Associates, Inc.