Primarily this is a collection of love letters written between 1942-1944 to Gertha Barbara Jean Sykes residing in St. Louis, Missouri and James NMI Dansby, an African-American soldier in the United States Army. There are also letters from two other Army soldiers, Jack Smith, stationed in the Pacific and Benjamin D. Collins, an aircompany soldier, whom Sykes married in 1949.

The letters begin when Dansby joined the Army and started basic training in Camp Shelby, Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Initially he was a member of Company C, 262nd Quartermaster Battalion (Service), one of the many all-black units activated during the Second World War. In April of 1944, he became a member of 4060th Quartermaster Battalion. Towards the end of 1944, he was stationed to the South West Pacific Theatre and most likely spent the war in the Philippines. He was there until after World War II in Asia had ended and then spent approximately three and a half months in Japan. After his arrival to the United States in January 1946, Dansby travelled to St. Louis and then moved to Detroit, Michigan. He never met Sykes again after he had left St. Louis for basic training and their relationship ended in January of 1947.

There are no letters written during Dansby's time in the Philippines and those mailed from Japan do not contain information about the war. Nevertheless, the collection provides a good insight into a soldier's life, contains numerous examples of military censorship of correspondence, and some reactions to the Jim Crow laws in place at the time.

In addition to letters to Sykes and few letters addressed to Collins, the collection contains a certificate of marriage between Sykes and Collins, postcards issued by the War Department notifying Sykes of Dansby's assignments to new installations, and stamped envelopes accompanying almost every letter.