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Love and Sand

by Howard M. Layton



      This great story of a man growing up to become the sort of man who could hold his head high, knowing that he did the very best he could during a horrifically trying time for his country and his family, offers a meticulous description of how WWII affected him mentally and as a person, for the rest of his life.  He fought the forces trying to ruin the world—Rommel and those who swore allegiance to Hitler and the Reich, especially those in Africa sworn to destroy the RAF and the American Air Force.  He gave up a girl in England, using a horrible lie, then lived on a day-to-day basis, trying to get over her, yet still yearning to live enough to live enough to fly his planes into combat and bullets and bombs.

This is a very engrossing story by a man who lived to tell it from his own memories.  He overcame all the adversity of the war and went on to greater heights than even he might have imagined for himself.  Sometimes war does good things to a person, after they live long enough to look back at it positively. World War II did many good things for the survivors, those who were able to put it into perspective and remake their lives after the stark warfare of constant battles of the mind, body and the soul.

Mr. Layton is a very handsome man, so much so that he was used as a stand-in for Robert Taylor in several movies and also performed in a special engagement in front of Queen Mary. He has a wonderful, full life story to tell, and it should be read by those who want to know more about the individual people who made up the whole of the fighting machine that won the hearts of all the world during WWII. Love and Sand as a title comes from his initial installation on the beaches of El Alamein in Africa, where he met many comely lasses and tried to fall in love to take away the pain of the loss of his earlier true love.

The Book

Three Spires Publishing
September 2008
Hardcover
0967600855 / 978-0967600857
Memoir
More at Amazon.com
Excerpt
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The Reviewer

Claudia Turner VanLydegraf
Reviewed 2008
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