An army in skirts
Subtitle: the World War II letters of Frances DeBra
By: Frances DeBra Brown
Publisher: Indiana Historical Society Press
Published: 2008
Place of publication: Indianapolis
Language: eng
Number of pages: 264
ISBN-13: 9780871952646
Subjects: Correspondence; Military participation; United States. Army. Women's Army Auxiliary Corps; Soldatin; Women's Army Corps; USA; Soldiers; Weltkrieg (1939-1945); Vrouwen; American Personal narratives; World War, 1939-1945; World War (1939-1945) fast (OCoLC)fst01180924; Female; Female Participation; Tweede Wereldoorlog; Women soldiers; United States; Biography
Description: "Over 150,000 women served in the Women's Army Corps (WAC) in World War II. Although the majority of WACs were assigned to duties in the United States, several thousand received overseas assignments. More than 7,600 WACs served in the European Theater of Operations (ETO), mostly as communications workers, stenographers, typists, and clerks. Only 8 percent worked in jobs considered unusual for women such as mechanics, draftsmen, interpreters, and weather observers. Frances DeBra Brown was a draftsmen at American headquarters in London and Paris, where she worked on classified material. Frances DeBra was born and raised in Danville, Indiana. An army in skirts : the World War II letters of Frances DeBra contains the letters that Frances wrote to her family and letters from family and friends to Frances. The letters vividly detail her World War II service, beginning with basic training at Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia. After an assignment at an army air field in Marianna, Florida, where she worked on the post newsletter, she was shipped overseas on the HMS Queen Mary. While in London she worked through buzz bomb and V-2 rocket attacks, slept in shelters fully clothed, and made the acquaintance of a young English woman and her family. Arriving in Paris two weeks after the city's liberation, Frances witnessed the city's devastation and the effects of war on the populace. During her stay in Paris she attended classes at the?cole des Beaux-Arts and received a marriage proposal"--Jacket.
Notes: Includes index.
Table of contents: title: Active service and basic training; title: Fort Meade, South Dakota; title: Marianna Army Air Field, Florida; title: Christmas at Marianna Air Field, Florida; title: Work on the flight line; title: Overseas training; title: London; title: Buzz bombs; title: Somewhere in France; title: Paris; title: Battle of the Bulge; title: Bleak winter in wartime; title: Springtime in war-weary Paris; title: V-E Day; title: Summer; title: Three-day pass to Brussels; title: Halton; title: Le Havre; title: Frances's watercolor drawings.