Book Review: “Regret to Inform You”

Review by Leo Racicot

Book by Richard P. Howe Jr.

History, when viewed from a distance, is often a matter of staggering numbers, of sweeping troop movements. But in Regret to Inform You: The Human Cost of WWII in Lowell, Mass. Historian Richard Howe Jr. performs a staggering act of literary and historical restoration. He brings the global theater of conflict down to the neighborhoods, triple-deckers, the mill-heavy streets of Lowell, reminding us that global tragedies are always, at their core, heartbreakingly local.

The premise of the book is as straightforward as it is emotionally stunning: Howe seeks to return a face, a family, a specific story for every single one of the 441 sons and daughters of Lowell who left for World War II and never came home.

Rather than allowing these names to remain frozen in the bronze and stone of the city’s memorial tablets, Howe meticulously excavates the archives to reconstruct who these people actually were before they became casualties of war. He reawakens them, Lazarus-like.

By detailing their local backgrounds—where they went to school, which mill or neighborhood shop they worked in, and who was left waiting for them at home—the book moves compassionately beyond a simple military checklist.

Howe documents the precise circumstances of their deaths, spanning the entire timeline of American involvement in the war from the initial shock at Pearl Harbor to the final, horrifying days of Hiroshima.

With his characteristic meticulous eye for detail, the author ultimately creates a haunting echo of the sacrifices these courageous people made in the name of freedom. He resurrects them as real human beings, releasing them from the anonymity of being mere names on a monument. Thanks to his empathy, they live again.

The book’s end result presents the sheer weight of global war when viewed through a telescopic lens of personal loss, the devastating cost of so many lives lost but not lost in vain.

Regret to Inform You is an essential addition to the history of Lowell, a dense, reverent, incredibly important work of remembrance that ensures the names inscribed on the city’s monuments are remembered not just for how they died but for the community they lived in, the lives they left behind.

For anyone invested in military history, local heritage, or the quiet, stories of ordinary people caught in the grip of extraordinary times, this is a deeply rewarding read.