A grandson, son, and son-in-law of railroad engineers, Walter Hudson (“Bud”) Pullen was a native of Atlanta, Georgia, and a graduate of Boys’ High School, whose distinguished alumni included Ivan Allen, Jr., future mayor of Atlanta, Ernie Harwell, who would become a major league baseball announcer for the Detroit Tigers, and Samuel Truett Cathy, founder of the fast-food chain Chick-fil-A. After earning a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Management from Georgia Tech in May 1942, he worked in a GM plant in Saginaw, Michigan, making Browning M-1919 A4 machine guns and M1 carbines. In August 1942 Pullen was commissioned an ensign in the United States Navy Reserve, in which he served throughout World War II.

“After the War is Over” includes more than 150 of his letters, telegrams, and V-mails, which have been transcribed and annotated for this volume. His wartime correspondence was written to his parents while he was an assistant foreman in a defense plant, a student at Navy Supply Corps School at Harvard, when he was stationed at the U.S. Naval Amphibious Training Base, in Solomons, Maryland, the Naval Repair Base at San Diego, and Pearl Harbor Navy Yard, Hawaii. Some of his letters were produced when he was at sea as part of the Black Cat USS LCI Flotilla 13 staff, and after he returned to the U.S. following VE Day. Of special interest are his letters home written both during the Battle of Angaur, which took place in the southernmost part of the Palau Islands, about 500 miles from the Philippines, in September-October 1944, and following the battle, when Black Cat USS LCI Flotilla 13 gunboats were assigned patrol, picket, and harassment duties.

Because of censorship rules, Pullen was unable to provide operational details including his exact location. Yet he gives us information about his time aboard various amphibious crafts in the Pacific, their officers and crew, their diversions and activities. In his letters he frequently mentions fraternity brothers at Tech, high school classmates, former dance dates, and friends from Navy Supply School. We learn mostly about other Atlantans, all young white Southerners in their early to mid-twenties, who like Walter Pullen served in the military and helped in their own way to win the war.

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Note: A portion of the proceeds from the sale of this work will be donated to the USS LCI National Association to help preserve the legacy and the memory of the men who manned the United States Navy Landing Craft Infantry during World War II. The Association is a registered 501(c)(19) nonprofit veterans organization.