About Under Wraps

Title: Under Wraps
Subtitle: One Soldier’s Hidden Diary of WWII
Author: Jay Coffman
Editor: Tom Fulks
Publisher:  Day to Day Enterprises
Category: Nonfiction, Military History
ISBN: Hardcover: 1-890905-53-4
Paperback: 1-890905-52-6
Price: Hardcover: $26; Softcover: $17
Pages: 336
 

 

For those who are too young to have experienced that war, to help those who lived it to remember it better, and in the interests of research and history

Under Wraps features the wartime diary of Jay Coffman. The diary begins on the day he mustered to be shipped out to the Pacific, and it ends after the war on the day he was discharged from the US Army Infantry. Coffman kept his diary on notes, which he hid in his personal effects as keeping a diary was a court-martial offense in combat zones. He also wrote an abundance of letters to home, but they were strictly censored, so he wrote diary notes on what he could not write home about. Upon his return home, Jay’s bride Dot typed up the diary notes. Only a handful of people have ever seen the typed diary, as Jay and Dot both considered it to be “too personal.”

The diary recounts several parallel story-lines: the war and combat, home and family, serving with hometown buddies, tropical island cultures, malaria, and his long-distance romance with Dot.

• Jay mentions most major events in World War II, even in the European, Russian, and African theaters. With footnotes and endnotes added by the editor, the diary constitutes an historical account of World War II. Normally a headquarters sergeant, Jay took part in combat on Guadalcanal and Iwo Jima.

• Jay had lived with his Mom and Dad until leaving for war. He wrote running accounts about his parents, five siblings, nieces and nephews, and other relatives and close friends. Readers will become acquainted with his typical rural Midwest family of that period.

• Jay served side by side with his hometown buddies, and encountered other friends from home from time to time. Readers will get intimate looks at Moe, Mitch, and his other buddies.

• Jay was not one to idly wait for his next assignment; for example, he was stationed in Tonga for several months where he recorded his observations about the island and its culture, and about his fascinating experiences with the natives and his buddies there.

• Jay contracted the severest type of malaria on Guadalcanal, along with all of his company. Following medical treatment on Samoa, improved but not cured Jay and his buddies were soon sent back into the war.

• Perhaps the most dramatic story was Jay’s on-going romance with Dot. They were an “item” before Jay left for the war, but were not formally engaged to be married. Engaged or not, they were completely committed to each other throughout the war, and were married immediately upon his return home.

Jay Coffman wrote his diary using the vernacular of his times, and mentioning events, people, and places that people who did not live through that war would not recognize. The editor, Tom Fulks, researched the diary and provides the background necessary to understand and appreciate Jay’s unedited diary. Fulks contributed the Preface, Introduction, footnotes and endnotes, Epilog, and a History Notes section. The diary is fully referenced and indexed suitably for researchers, historians and scholars. Yet, Jay’s comfortable writing style makes the diary itself very easy to read.

See Reviews

Purchase | About Under Wraps | Book Excerpts | Reviews
About the Author & Editor | Photo Gallery | Contact Us | Home