Compiled by Charles A. Lowenhaupt, the war letters of his father, Henry Cronbach Lowenhaupt, arrived regularly in the United States during the years 1943 and 1944. Henry was a young Harvard-educated lawyer when he entered World War II. He was stationed in North Africa, Sicily and Italy always following the American forces moving North. His letters suggest that he made friends, ate well, and saw some interesting sites. But what they don't say is perhaps even more telling. Henry was stationed in Bari during a time when President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill didn't want their military personnel in Bari to talk about what was happening there. With that in mind, the supplemental section to this collection of letters provides additional insights into what Bari was, and is, like and why it played an important role in the war.

A robust Appendix contains historical research about Bari during World War II created by Alessandro Lavopa of Storie di Famiglia with excerpts from Henry Lowenhaupt's war letters interspersed to add a sense of where he was and what he was doing in Bari at various times in the War.