[Archive of Manuscript Letters by U.S. Navy Commander Capt. John A. Gamon, Jr., Writing Home to His Wife During the Interwar Period, World War II, and the Korean War]

[Various locations, 1952. Very good.. Approximately 230 manuscript or typed letters, signed, totaling about 550 pages, almost all with original transmittal envelopes. Minor overall wear. A voluminous collection of original correspondence sent home by United States Navy Commander John Arthur Gamon, Jr. (1910-2001), covering almost twenty years of his military service encompassing the interwar period, World War II, and the Korean War. John A. Gamon was raised in Berkeley, California, then trained and served as a pilot in the Navy. The overwhelming percentage of the present collection includes letters written from him to Helen Mae Hall, who shortly became Helen Mae Gamon. His first few letters here are written to "Miss" Helen Hall, while his June 9, 1937 letter addressed to "Mrs. John A. Gamon, Jr." The couple had at least two children who are mentioned in the letters, named Goodie and Jona. Gamon served in the Navy until 1960. He passed away in San Diego on September 2, 2001.

Gamon's letters are chock full of information about his activities, both professional and personal, his leisure activities in various port cities and at naval bases throughout the country, and more over a seventeen year period. The collection includes around 200 letters by Gamon to his wife, twenty-five letters from Helen back to him, and a handful of family letters. The great majority of Gamon's letters, around 150 total, were written during World War II or the Korean War. His prewar letters were sent from the U.S.S. Oklahoma, at home in Berkeley, at port in Tacoma, Honolulu, Panama, San Diego, Pensacola, Norfolk, various inland locations, and others. Gamon frequently reports on his flying adventures, his activities and the specifics of life aboard ship, as well as those of fellow sailors, mentions the books he's reading, movies he's seen, describes his various social activities, and more. He also asks Helen to report on home front activities and regularly requests various family news.

The great majority of the letters were sent home by Gamon while serving with the U.S. Navy during World War II in 1943 and 1944. When the war began, Gamon was a lieutenant commander stationed in Virginia, then he moved around, to Florida, New York, Rhode Island, Virginia, and California. Because he served largely on the home front during the war, Gamon's letters do not include much content on the war itself; the letters are, in a sense, the record of a marriage lived out at a distance and in letters. As with his earlier letters, Gamon reports on his professional and personal life in the Navy, then touches on issues at home, and continually expresses a profound sense of love for Helen and his family across the miles. Gamon's later letters, dated between 1948 and 1952 are largely of the same nature, while he was stationed in Washington, D.C. and then again in San Francisco. However, much of Gamon's 1952 letters, which emanate from the last half of the year, are written from various locations in Japan, where Gamon was apparently providing naval support during the Korean War. As in the earlier letters, Gamon mentions his piloting activities, but without a great deal of detail. As with most letters written during the Second World War and in Korea, military letters were subject to censors; several of the letters here exhibit approval stamps from the censors. Helen's twenty-five letters to Gamon report much from the home front, including family news and the activities of their children; in one early letter, Helen has drawn herself as a pregnant stick figure. The collection contains much to mine for researchers looking into marital relationships in the mid-20th century.