As an eighteen-year-old young man, Frank B. Bradshaw Jr. served in World War II as a sailor in the Merchant Marine Corps from 1944 to 1946. In Forty-Five Letters from a World War II Sailor, Robert W. Bradshaw presents a collection of letters his father, Frank, wrote to his parents during a two-year period. It was a dangerous time in history when mariners died at a rate of one in twenty-four, the highest rate of casualties of any service.

From a cold-blooded slaughter in the Ukraine, to illicit sex on the high seas, to coping with food shortages and a loony captain, Frank...