Please see my full review at Independent Book Review here: https://independentbookreview.com/2024/09/09/book-review-searching-for-john-dewitt/

This moving book describing a grandsons’ discovery of his grandfather’s World War I military service that was never talked about, is particularly poignant to me as I have still to discover my own grandfather’s service history in that same conflict. When the family discovered the bundles of letters that his grandfather wrote from the beginning of his journey to initial military training through to his hospitalization and return to the USA, this allowed a story to emerge of a short but remarkable experience of a country boy volunteering to go to war and enduring the trials and horrors of the trenches on the Western Front.
Like so many survivors of widespread conflicts, John De Witt did not talk about his experiences on his return, but the family knew he had been wounded and gassed as a ‘battalion runner’, one of the most dangerous roles in the front line with a short life expectancy. On his return, he had a period of recuperation before resuming his education and becoming a lawyer and it was during that time that the young grandson remembered him but was unaware of his time in France.
A very human story that allowed the family to understand John’s early life that made him the pillar of society he became.