40 - Homefront to Battlefront
The WW2 Podcast
Angus Wallace
4.6 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 1 April 2017
⏱️ 59 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
I've been planning to look at some individual soldiers stories for some time, the first was going to be the story of a Green Howard who fought through from D-Day until the end of the war. As his story is similar to my great uncles everyone in my family was interested and the book has gone on it's travels passed from my mother to my sister to my brother… As of typing I haven't got it back...
In the meantime when I was given the opportunity to talk to Frank Lavin about his father's war time experience I jumped at the chance.
Frank has gathered together and organised his father letters he posted home during the war. Carl Lavin was a high school senior in Canton, Ohio, when Pearl Harbor was attacked. The Canton, Ohio, native was eighteen when he enlisted, a decision that would take him with the US Army from training across the United States and Britain to combat with the 84th Infantry Division in the Battle of the Bulge and through to the occupation of Germany.
The book is Homefront to Battlefront: An Ohio Teenage in World War II there is a link on the website.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This podcast is made possible through the kind donations of listeners like yourself |
| 0:06.0 | by committing to a small recurring donation via PayPal or Patreon you're helping me to put the show together. |
| 0:13.0 | If you are a regular subscriber and would like to help, go to |
| 0:17.0 | W.W.2 Podcast.com and click on donate it for details. |
| 0:21.0 | If you ever wondered what I looked like you'll also find a short |
| 0:24.5 | video of me there. Hello and welcome to another World War II podcast. I've been |
| 0:29.8 | planning to look at some individual soldier stories for some time. The first was going to be the story of a British Green Howard who fought through from Dunkirk until the end of the war. |
| 0:40.0 | As his story is similar to my great uncles, everyone in my family was interested, and the book has gone on its travels, passed from my mother, to my sister, to my brother, and there, as of right now I haven't got it back. But in the meantime I was |
| 0:57.8 | given the opportunity to talk to Frank Lavin about his father's wartime |
| 1:01.8 | experience. |
| 1:03.0 | I jumped at the chance. |
| 1:05.0 | Frank has gathered together and organized his father's letters that he posted home during the war. |
| 1:11.0 | Carl Lavin was a high school senior in Canton Ohio when Pearl Harbor was attacked. |
| 1:17.3 | The Canton, Ohio native was 18 when he enlisted a decision that would take him with the US Army from training across the United |
| 1:25.6 | States and Britain to combat with the 84th Infantry Division in the Battle of the Bulge and then through to the occupation of Germany. |
| 1:35.3 | The book is Homefront to Battlefront, an Ohio teenager in World War II. |
| 1:40.8 | There is a link on the website. |
| 1:42.4 | Frank, thanks for joining me. I think it's interesting |
| 1:44.8 | reading letters rather than a memoir. As the letters were written at the time, you get a very |
| 1:50.0 | honest account whereas with memoirs, you never know what has been added after the event when they've gone away and looked something up or or they've been influenced by other things. |
| 2:00.0 | Frank, that's why I think these letters from your father are so interesting. |
| 2:03.8 | I think in this letters, if I may tout a bit, I think these letters have extraordinary advantage of |
... |
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