Letter Writing - Definition and Examples

Letter Writing s Letter writing is the exchange of written or printed messages. Distinctions are commonly drawn between personal letters (sent between family members, friends, or acquaintances) and business letters (formal exchanges with businesses or government organizations). Letter writing occurs in many forms and formats, including notes, letters, and postcards. Sometimes referred to as hard copy or snail mail, letter writing is often distinguished from forms of computer-mediated communication (CMC), such as email and texting. In his book Yours Ever: People and Their Letters (2009), Thomas Mallon identifies some of the subgenres of the letter, including the Christmas card, the chain letter, the mash note, the bread-and-butter letter, the ransom note, the begging letter, the dunning letter, the letter of recommendation, the unsent letter, the Valentine, and the war-zone dispatch. Observations The test, I think, of a good letter is a very simple one. If one seems to hear the person talking as one reads the letter, it is a good letter.(A.C. Benson, Letter-Writing. Along the Road, 1913)The art of beautiful letter writing has declined with our supposed advances, [Alvin Harlow] lamenteda cry we have been hearing ever more often in the eighty years since his book appeared. Those of us with a strong inclination toward the past must remember that, to its early writers, the handwritten or even chiseled letter must itself have seemed a marvel of modernity, and surely, even in Queen Atossas time, there were those who complained that letter writingby its nature a virtual activitywas cutting down on all the face time that civilized Persians had previously enjoyed.(Thomas Mallon, Yours Ever: People and Their Letters. Random House, 2009)Literary CorrespondenceThe age of the literary correspondence is dying, slowly but surely electrocuted by the superconductors of high modernity. This ex piration was locked into a certainty about 20 years ago; and although William Trevor and V.S. Naipaul, say, may yet reward us, it already sounds fogeyish to reiterate that, no, we wont be seeing, and we wont be wanting to see, the selected faxes and emails, the selected texts and tweets of their successors.(Martin Amis, Philip Larkins Women. The Guardian, October 23, 2010) Historical RecordsSo much of what we know of the world stems from private letters. Our principal eyewitness account of Vesuvius derives from a letter from Pliny the Younger to the Roman historian Tacitus. Our knowledge of the Roman world has been hugely enriched by the discovery in the early 1970s of inky messages on oak and birch discovered not far from Hadrians Wall in Britain. The letters of Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn and of Napoleon to Josephine show infatuation, weakness and angeruseful additions to rounded character portraits. The list carries on to the present day, with recently collected correspondence by Paul Cezanne, P.G. Wodehouse and Christopher Isherwood adding nuance to influential lives.(Simon Garfield, The Lost Art of Letter-Writing. The Wall Street Journal, November 16-17, 2013)The Future of Letter WritingAll communication is human-madebased upon some form of technology. It is not that some forms of communication are free from technology but rather that all modes of c ommunication are based upon a complex relationship between the current cultural practices and the material resources necessary to support the technology. . . .Though CMC [computer-mediated communication] may, for those with access, replace letters as a means of rapid personal communication [the] lack of material fixity ensures a continued role for letters. By making a physical mark in the process of communication, letters for the moment support a number of social practices and conventions where authorship, authenticity and originality need to be ensured (e.g. in legal or business interactions).(Simeon J. Yates, Computer-Mediated Communication: The Future of the Letter? Letter Writing as a Social Practice, ed. by David Barton and Nigel Hall. John Benjamins, 2000) Jail MailIn prisons across the country, with their artificial pre-Internet worlds where magazines are one of the few connections to the outside and handwritten correspondence is the primary form of communication, the art of the pen-to-paper letter to the editor is thriving. Magazine editors see so much of it that they have even coined a term for these letters: jail mail.(Jeremy W. Peters, The Handwritten Letter, an Art All but Lost, Thrives in Prison. The New York Times, Jan. 7, 2011)Electronic Letter-WritingWhen I sift through my past weeks electronic in-box, I find easily half a dozen messages that qualify as letters in every traditional sense. They are coherently structured, written with care and design. They enlighten, they illuminate, they endear. They even follow the old epistolary ritual of signing off (not yours ever, but some venerable variant: yours . . . cheers . . . all best . . . xo). . . .[T]hese messages would probably never have come my way if the senders had been obl iged to take out pen and paper. Indeed, it is the very facility of electronic communication that makes the Luddite soul tremble. . . .Even in the age of tweets and pokes and blasts, the impulse to bring order to our thoughts and lives persists, and at the risk of sounding like a technojingoist, one might argue that technology facilitates this impulse as much as it impedes it.​(Louis Bayard, Personal Compositions. The Wilson Quarterly, Winter 2010)

Battle of Kwajalein in World War II

Battle of Kwajalein in World War II The Battle of Kwajalein occurred January 31 to February 3, 1944 in the Pacific Theater of World War II (1939-1945). Moving forward from victories in the Solomons and Gilbert Islands in 1943, Allied forces sought to penetrate the next ring of Japanese defenses in the central Pacific. Attacking into the Marshall Islands, the Allies occupied Majuro and then commenced operations against Kwajalein. Striking at both ends of the atoll, they succeeded in eliminating the Japanese opposition after brief but fierce battles. The triumph opened the way for the subsequent capture of Eniwetok and a campaign against the Marianas.   Background In the wake of the American victories at Tarawa and Makin in November 1943, Allied forces continued their island-hopping campaign by moving against Japanese positions in Marshall Islands. Part of the Eastern Mandates, the Marshalls were originally a German possession and were awarded to Japan after World War I. Considered part of the outer ring of Japanese territory, planners in Tokyo decided after the loss of the Solomons and New Guinea that the islands were expendable. With this in mind, what troops were available were shifted to the area to make the islands capture as costly as possible. Japanese Preparations Led by Rear Admiral Monzo Akiyama, Japanese forces in the Marshalls consisted of the 6th Base Force which initially numbered approximately 8,100 men and 110 aircraft. While a sizable force, Akiyamas strength was diluted by the need to spread his command over the entirety of the Marshalls. In addition, many of Akiyamas troops were labor/construction details or naval forces with little ground combat training. As a result, Akiyama could only muster around 4,000 effectives. Believing the assault would strike one of the outlying islands first, he positioned the bulk of his men on Jaluit, Mili, Maloelap, and Wotje. In November 1943, American airstrikes began whittling down Akiyamas air power, destroying 71 aircraft. These were partially replaced over the next several weeks by reinforcements flown in from Truk. On the Allied side, Admiral Chester Nimitz originally planned a series of assaults on the outer islands of the Marshalls, but upon learning of Japanese troop dispositions through ULTRA radio intercepts altered his approach. Rather than strike where Akiyamas defenses were strongest, Nimitz directed his forces to move against Kwajalein Atoll in the central Marshalls. Armies Commanders Allies Rear Admiral Richmond K. TurnerMajor General Holland M. Smithapprox. 42,000 men (2 divisions) Japanese Rear Admiral Monzo Akiyamaapprox. 8,100 men Allied Plans Designated Operation Flintlock, the Allied plan called for Rear Admiral Richmond K. Turners 5th Amphibious Force to deliver Major General Holland M. Smiths V Amphibious Corps to the atoll where Major General Harry Schmidts 4th Marine Division would assault the linked islands of Roi-Namur while Major General Charles Corletts 7th Infantry Division attacked Kwajalein Island. To prepare for the operation, Allied aircraft repeatedly struck Japanese airbases in the Marshalls through December. This saw B-24 Liberators stage through Baker Island to bomb a variety of strategic targets including the airfield on Mili. Subsequent strikes saw A-24 Banshees and B-25 Mitchells mount several raids across the Marshalls. Moving into position, US carriers began a concerted air offensive against Kwajalein on January 29, 1944. Two days later, US troops captured the small island of Majuro, 220 miles to the southeast, without a fight. This operation was conducted by the V Amphibious Corps Marine Reconnaissance Company and 2nd Battalion, 106th Infantry.    Coming Ashore That same day, members of the 7th Infantry Division landed on small islands, dubbed Carlos, Carter, Cecil, and Carlson, near Kwajalein to establish artillery positions for the assault on the island. The next day, the artillery, with additional fire from US warships, including USS Tennessee (BB-43), opened fire on Kwajalein Island. Pummeling the island, the bombardment allowed the 7th Infantry to land and easily overcome the Japanese resistance. The attack was also aided by the weak nature of the Japanese defenses which could not be built in depth due to the islands narrowness.   Fighting continued for four day with the Japanese mounting nightly counterattacks. On February 3, Kwajalein Island was declared secure. Roi-Namur At the north end of the atoll, elements of the 4th Marines followed a similar strategy and established fire bases on islands dubbed Ivan, Jacob, Albert, Allen, and Abraham. Attacking Roi-Namur on February 1, they succeeded in securing the airfield on Roi that day and eliminated Japanese resistance on Namur the next day. The largest single loss of life in the battle occurred when a Marine threw a satchel charge into a bunker containing torpedo warheads. The resulting blast killed 20 Marines and wounded several others. Aftermath The victory at Kwajalein broke a hole through the Japanese outer defenses and was a key step in the Allies island-hopping campaign. Allied losses in the battle numbered 372 killed and 1,592 wounded. Japanese casualties are estimated at 7,870 killed/wounded and 105 captured. In assessing the outcome at Kwajalein, Allied planners were pleased to find that the tactical changes made after the bloody assault on Tarawa had bore fruit and plans were made to attack Eniwetok Atoll on February 17. For the Japanese, the battle demonstrated that beachline defenses were too vulnerable to attack and that defense in-depth was necessary if they hoped to stop Allied assaults.