Letter 39

Letter 39 is the thirty-ninth letter written by J.R.R. Tolkien and published in The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien.

Summary
Tolkien told his son Michael of two ladies, mother and little girl in-law, who were staying with the Tolkiens amid the Blitz. They about-faced to London that morning, and Tolkien remarked that he had never seen increasingly basic, powerless, tender and miserable souls. Both ladies were far from their spouses without precedent for their lives, and "would want to be blown to bits."