WELCOME
TO OUR MILITARY HERO BLOG TOUR
August
9 – 16
We
Band of Angels
by Lise Horton
Too many of the
histories of the war pay scant attention to the valor of the women who fought this
war on a number of fronts - all with a patriotic fervor equal to their male
counterparts.
WASPS. OSS. WACS. WAVES.
Journalists and photographers. Scientists. Nurses. These women took on new
jobs. Dangerous jobs. Deadly jobs. Yet the histories of the cataclysm mention women
in passing, mostly as pinup girls or prostitutes. While Women Airforce Service Pilots
were recruited by Jacqueline Cochran and Nancy Love to ferry planes from
factories to where they were needed, they were soon put into service as pilots
towing targets for anti-aircraft gunner training. And after proving their
flight prowess, were used as test pilots on new aircraft. Sometimes aircraft
the male pilots refused to fly due to difficulty or danger. The women climbed
in, took off, and made the point. Many of them died in the course of this job,
but were denied any military status, or pension, when they were unceremoniously
sent packing.
In the Office of
Strategic Services, precursor to today’s CIA, most women filled administrative
roles. But a number were trained and put into the field as covert agents. Like
Virginia Hall, who despite an artificial leg, trained and parachuted into
France. She trained 3 battalions of French resistance forces and was forced to
flee the Nazis by walking over the mountains into Spain.
From spies to radio
operators to saboteurs these women performed with exemplary bravery and
fortitude (acknowledged even by the enemy). On the backs of legends, a new wave
of female reporters and photographers clamored for, and received, permission to
take their places next to the men in WWII. Women like Martha Gellhorn, who
finagled her way to cover D-Day (she was a stowaway). Of the 1600 accredited
journalists, wearing the “C” to identify them as war correspondents, were 127
women. Photojournalists like Dicky Chappelle, who covered wars until her death
in Vietnam, Lee Miller, former fashion model, and Margaret Bourke-White, who
covered the German invasion of Russia.
Among service women
(WACS, WAVES, SPARS and Marine Corps Women’s Reserves) were a group who became
the subject of Elizabeth Norman’s WE BAND OF ANGELS. The Army and Navy Nurse Corps dealt with the same
diseases, danger and deprivation as soldiers did. The risks were made all too
clear in the early days of the war when the US
surrendered Corregidor, following the loss of Bataan. The majority of nurses
were evacuated, but not all. Many remained behind to care for the wounded that
couldn’t be evacuated. When the Japanese invaded, the nurses were taken
prisoner and sent to horrific prison camps, like Santo Tomas, where they
remained until the Americans regained control of the Philippines in 1945.
Despite starvation,
disease and torture, they kept serving the sick and injured throughout their
captivity. Female scientists participated in the Manhattan Project, at Los
Alamos where the Trinity “gadget” was devised, and tested on July 16, 1945, and
at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, working to produce the fissionable material used for the
bombs. Danger was their daily companion as well, since some among other dangers,
scientists feared an atomic blast would ignite the Earth’s atmosphere and
incinerate the planet.
Besides Rosies who kept
the war machine running, the USO entertainers who fought to keep morale up, the
women who danced at USO clubs or manned firetrucks, mothers who gathered tin
and gave up their stockings, to the women of NYC who manned air raid towers,
women proved their patriotism in a pivotal moment in our history.
Let’s hear a big hoo-ya
for the ladies!♥
Lise Horton writes edgy,
kinky heroes who love masochistic heroines beneath their hands. Of her short
story under her pseudonym, Lydia Hill, “My Master’s Mark” [Cleis Press’ May
2014 Slave Girls: Erotic Stories of Submission], Library Journal’s starred
review said “surprisingly poignant”. Visit www.lisehorton.com and for free,
naughty reads stop by her Lust In the Afternoon blog, http://blackrosediaries.blogspot.com.
Not enough is known about these heroines. Thanks for bringing it to our attention.
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