A Love Story Preserved by War and Rediscovered Almost a Century Later
Letters Across the Pacific
Letters Across the Pacific · Volume I brings to life the correspondence of Lt. (jg) James L. Wiley, U.S.N.R., and his wife, Margaret Bernice McCormick Wiley, during the years surrounding World War II.
Through their surviving letters, photographs, V-Mail, newspaper clippings, and other original material, the book follows a young couple whose ordinary dreams of marriage, family, and home were interrupted by an extraordinary moment in history.
Their story was never intended for publication.
They were simply writing to each other.
Decades later, their words were found again.
A true story told through original letters
James and Margaret's correspondence provides an intimate window into life during World War II — not only from the perspective of a serviceman overseas, but also from the perspective of the woman and family waiting at home.
James served aboard the USS Libra (AKA-12), an attack cargo ship that operated in the Pacific theater.
Their correspondence reflects separation, uncertainty, military service, family life, hope, fear, humor, affection, and the anticipation of coming home.
The letters allow the reader to experience history through the words of two people who were actually living it.
From home to the Pacific
The story moves between two worlds.
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The Home
The story moves between two worlds.
At home, Margaret wrote about family, everyday life, and the challenges of waiting.
War was happening around them. But between them remained a marriage, a family, and the hope of being together again.
The Pacific War
Across the Pacific, James wrote while serving aboard the USS Libra, whose wartime operations took the ship through major areas of the Pacific campaign, including Bougainville, Leyte, and Okinawa.
Against this enormous historical background, their correspondence remained intensely personal.
Found in an attic
Nearly five hundred letters had remained hidden for decades.
During the renovation of a house in New Jersey, Ademir Souza discovered a box containing the correspondence.
When he asked the homeowner whether he could keep the letters, the response was simple: the owner did not know the people in them and considered the material something that could be discarded.
Ademir, already interested in preserving old material and history, kept the box.
What initially appeared to be a collection of old letters gradually revealed something much larger: the story of James and Margaret Wiley and a remarkably personal record of the World War II generation.
The letters were cleaned, organized, and arranged chronologically.
Years later, they became the foundation of Letters Across the Pacific.
Almost a century
More than eight decades separate today's reader from many of these handwritten pages.
A husband missing his wife.
A wife waiting for news.
Parents thinking about their child.
Plans postponed by war.
Fear that could not always be spoken openly.
And the persistent belief that one day they would be together again.
History records battles, ships, dates, and military operations. Letters preserve something different: what it felt like to live through them.
Inside Volume I
Volume I follows James and Margaret from their early relationship through marriage, family life, wartime separation, James's service aboard the USS Libra, the Pacific war, Okinawa, the end of the conflict, and the long-awaited return home.
The book includes selected original correspondence and historical photographs, allowing readers to see portions of the surviving material for themselves.
01 Chapter 1 — The Young Margaret
03 Chapter 3 — Marriage, Home & Corki
05 Chapter 5 — The USS Libra and the Roads of War
07 Chapter 7 — Fire on the Water
09 Chapter 9 — The Long Road Home
11 Chapter 11 — Homecoming
13 Epilogue
00 Prologue — From an Attic to the Pacific
02 Chapter 2 — Courtship & Engagement
04 Chapter 4 — The First Separation
06 Chapter 6 — The Home Front
08 Chapter 8 — Okinawa
10 Chapter 10 — When Peace Returned
12 Chapter 12 — After the War
Hundreds of letters have yet to speak
Letters Across the Pacific is not the story of a single letter.
The surviving collection contains hundreds of pieces of correspondence spanning several years.
Volume I introduces James, Margaret, their family, their separation, and the historical world surrounding them.
But much of the archive remains to be explored.
The story continues.
Preserving History
The letters were not discovered in an archive or museum.
They survived because a box that could easily have been discarded was preserved.
That accident of survival is central to this project.
Personal correspondence can reveal parts of history that official documents cannot: uncertainty, affection, frustration, loneliness, humor, ordinary routines, and the private hopes of people living through extraordinary events.
The purpose of Letters Across the Pacific is therefore larger than telling one family's story.
It is also an effort to preserve voices that might otherwise have disappeared.
From discovery to historical project
The collection also became connected with the academic community.
While studying at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, Ademir Souza received assistance in cataloging and organizing the historical correspondence.
Years later, he returned to UMass Dartmouth with a published copy of the book and had the opportunity to speak with students about the letters, their preservation, and the journey from an attic discovery to a published historical work.
The project remains deeply grateful for the encouragement and assistance received during that process.
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