Elden Duane Rogers died on March 19, 1945, one of the eight hundred who perished on the aircraft carrier USS Franklin that day. It was his nineteenth birthday.
Write home often, the navy told sailors like Elden, thinking it would keep up morale among sailors and those waiting for them stateside. But they were told not to write anything about where they were, where they had been, where they were going, what they were doing, or even what the weather was like. Spies were presumed everywhere, and loose lips could sink ships. Before a sailor's letter could be sealed and sent, a censor...