BOOK GIVEAWAY AND WASPs – WORLD WAR II LADY TEST PILOTS

ANNE GREENE here. Today I’m giving an autographed copy of my WWII Women Test Pilots book, ANGEL WITH STEEL WINGS, to one person who answers a question at the bottom of this blog. So please leave a comment and your email for a chance to win.

Women played an important role in many jobs during World War II. One way women helped win that war to end all war was test piloting repaired combat planes. This was an especially dangerous job and thirty-eight WASPs died in the line of duty.

 

In 1942, the United States faced a severe pilot shortage. President Roosevelt made a life-altering decision that affected all women. He decided to train women to fly military aircraft so male pilots could be released for combat overseas. Congress named the females the Women Airforce Service Pilots – WASPs. The ladies surprised the Army Air Force Commander General Hap Arnold who wasn’t sure a ‘slip of a girl could fight the controls of a B-17 in heavy weather. Neither were many officers and enlisted men in the Air Force. The ladies had to prove themselves. And prove themselves they did. With flying colors.

More than 1,100 lady civilian volunteers flew every type of military aircraft, including the B-26 and B-29 bombers, as part of the WASP program. They tested overhauled, crippled fighter planes, they towed targets to give inexperienced ground and air gunners training to shoot with live ammunition, and they ferried untested planes from factories to military bases across the country. The WASPs expected to become a branch of the military. Congress never passed that bill.

And along the way, they fell in love.

WASPs weren’t granted military status until the 1970s. Now 65 years after their service, President Obama signed a bill awarding the WASPs the Congressional Gold Medal.

The women who flew had moxie and an adventurous gene. In that 1940-1944 timeframe, most people had never travelled aboard a plane, much less flown one. Short, tall, slim, wide, women joined the WASP program knowing how to fly. Since flying lessons were expensive, most women came from wealthy families. The military trained male pilots from scratch, but not the female civilian volunteers.

Jacqueline Cochran, the driving force and head of the WASP program, was a pioneering aviator. But disbelieving men threatened the WASP program from the start. WASPs had to fight to remain in service. Men found the program unacceptable and hard to swallow, not believing that women could release men for combat and place themselves in danger. And these male voices were loud.

Yet, along the way, women fell in love.

 

After proving themselves above and beyond the call of duty, Commander Arnold said, “Let the record stand. Women can fly as well as men, and in many cases, better.”

Still, as war drew to a close in the summer of 1944, women’s flight training programs closed. Flight instructors didn’t want to lose their jobs to women, so they lobbied Washington for the WASPs’ jobs saying, “It’s unacceptable for women to replace men.” Men said they were heads of families and sole providers and as such needed the jobs more than women.

And yet, along the way, women fell in love.

In my book, ANGEL WITH STEEL WINGS, about WASPs, you’ll discover a tumultuous romance, live through many of the adventures real American women experienced, and discover the answer to what happened to the WASPs. I hold WASPs in extremely high regard! Only a few of them remain alive today.

This month I’m giving an autographed copy of my historical romance, ANGEL WITH STEEL WINGS, to one person who leaves a comment. I pick the name from a hat. So please answer the question: In my next book of the Women of Courage series, would you rather read about a lady spy, a lady nurse, a WAC, a WAVE, a donut dolly, a victory garden grower, or a Rosie the riveter?

ANGEL WITH STEEL WINGS is a World War II romance where Steel Magnolias meet Band of Brothers. While test flying planes as a Woman Air Service Pilot, WASP, Mandy McCabe escapes her dead-end life in Hangman’s Hollow, Tennessee. Major Harvey Applegate lost his wife to the WASP program, and he’s convinced Yankee Doodle Gals have no place flying in the war effort. He determines to protect the WASPs by sending them packing back to the home front. Will their new love survive the test? One love. Two goals. Someone has to give.

ANNE GREENE delights in writing about alpha heroes who aren’t afraid to fall on their knees in prayer, and about gutsy heroines. Enjoy her Women of Courage series spotlighting heroic women of World War II, first book Angel With Steel Wings. Read her Holly Garden Private Investigating series, first book Red Is For Rookie. Look for Anne’s newest novella, The Marriage Broker and The Mortician in the anthology The California Gold Rush Romance Collection. Anne’s highest hope is that her stories transport the reader to an awesome new world and touch hearts to seek a deeper spiritual relationship with the Lord Jesus. Buy Anne’s books on http://www.Amazon.com. Visit Anne at AnneGreeneAuthor.com. and http://www.facebook.com/AnneWGreeneAuthor.

HEALING HANDS, NURSES DURING WORLD WAR II - BOOK GIVE-AWAY

ANNE GREENE here. Women served in other areas than test piloting wounded and repaired planes to be sent back into the war. For an exciting read about such women pilots, the WASPs, order my book, ANGEL WITH STEEL WINGS soon available on Amazon. LEAVE A COMMENT AND GAIN A CHANCE TO WIN A FIRST AUTOGRAPHED COPY OF ANGEL WITH STEEL WINGS. 

During WWII, women became nurses to get into the action. The Army and Navy Nurse Corps recruited 74,000 women throughout the war. Where ever men fought the war, nurses ministered. 

Nurses worked close to the front lines. They served under fire in field hospitals and evacuation hospitals, on hospital trains and hospital ships, and as flight nurses on medical transport planes. Their skill contributed to the low mortality rate among American servicemen. Fewer than four percent of soldiers who received medical care in the field died from wounds or disease. 

After the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaiian hospitals were overwhelmed with hundreds of casualties. The blood-spattered entrance stairs led to hallways where wounded men lay on the floor awaiting surgery. Nurses faced shortages of instruments, suture material, and sterile supplies. Doctors performing major surgery passed scissors back and forth from one table to another. Doctors and nurses used cleaning rags as face masks and operated without gloves.

The Japanese attacked US troops stationed in the Philippines on 8 December, where one hundred nurses served. They bombed planes, barracks, and field shops. The hospital escaped damage, but the large number of casualties overwhelmed the small staff. Japanese forces landed on the main island of Luzon and approached the city of Manila. All the nurses stationed outside Manila reached the city except for two nurses stranded at Camp John Hay, who became prisoners of the Japanese.

The Manila nurses evacuated to the island of Corregidor. The Japanese bombed the Hospital at Corregidor, scoring a direct hit on the wards and killing or seriously wounding more than one hundred patients. A nurse remembered the force of the bomb. "The sergeant pulled me under the desk, but the desk was blown into the air, and he and I with it. I heard myself gasping. My eyes were being gouged out of their sockets, my whole body felt swollen and torn apart by the violent pressure. Then I fell back to the floor, and the desk landed on top of me and bounced around. The sergeant knocked it away from me, and gasping for breath, bruised and aching, sick from swallowing the smoke from the explosive, I dragged myself to my feet." An appalling sight met her eyes. Patients blown out of their beds. Bodies and severed limbs hung from tree branches. Although the nurses expected more air attacks, they carried on.

With surrender inevitable, as many nurses as possible evacuated to Australia. Sixty-seven nurses became prisoners of war until U.S. troops liberated them in February 1945.

Sixty nurses attached to the 48th Surgical Hospital climbed over the side of a ship off the coast of North Africa and down an iron ladder into small assault boats. They wore helmets and carried full packs. Only their Red Cross arm bands and lack of weapons distinguished them from fighting troops. They waded ashore on D-day of Operation TORCH with the assault troops and huddled behind a sand dune while enemy snipers took potshots at anything that moved. They moved to an abandoned civilian hospital, where they cared for casualties. There was no electricity or running water, and the only medical supplies available were those the nurses brought. The hospital remained under sporadic sniper fire. Doctors operated under flashlights held by nurses. There were not enough beds, wounded soldiers lay on a concrete floor in pools of blood. The only sedatives available were the ones that the nurses carried with them during the landing.

 

Two hundred nurses lost their lives in service to their country. By war's end, nurses received 1,169 medals and citations. Some received the Purple Heart for outstanding performance. 

When the war ended, nurses returning to civilian life brought home valuable

skills and experiences. The Army had trained them in specialties such as anesthesia and psychiatric care. Nurses had become accustomed to taking the initiative, making quick decisions, and adopting innovative solutions to a broad range of medical-related problems. Society accepted nurses as professional members of the United States health care system. World War II changed American society and redefined the status and opportunities of the professional nurse.

Would you be interested in reading a book about Army Flight Nurses? Leave a comment for a chance to win an autographed copy of ANGEL WITH STEEL WINGS.

ANGEL WITH STEEL WINGS is a World War II romance where Steel Magnolias meet Band of Brothers. While doing her part test flying planes, Mandy McCabe escapes her dead-end life in Hangman’s Hollow, Tennessee as a Woman Air Service Pilot, WASP. Can she escape from her past? Major Harvey Applegate lost his wife to the WASP program, and he’s convinced Yankee Doodle Gals have no place flying in the war effort. He determines to protect the remaining ladies by sending them packing back to the home front. Both Mandy and Harvey experience immediate attraction, which increases Harvey’s desire to send Mandy home to safety. Can a man burdened with memories of death undertake added danger? Will their new love survive the test? One love. Two goals. Someone has to give.

 ANNE GREENE delights in writing about alpha heroes who aren’t afraid to fall on their knees in prayer, and about gutsy heroines. She writes both historical and suspense novels. She and her hero husband, Army Special Forces Colonel Larry Greene, have visited twenty-five countries.  A visit to Scotland resulted in her award-winning Scottish historicals, Masquerade Marriage and Marriage By Arrangement. Moody Press published her first book, Trail of Tears, an American historical. A Texas Christmas Mystery also won awards. Elk Lake Publishing contracted two series. Her Women of Courage Series spotlights heroic women of World War II. The first book, Angel With Steel Wings, releases May 2015. The second series, Holly Garden, PI, has the first book, Holly Garden, PI, Red Is For Rookie, releasing June 2015. Anne makes her home in McKinney, Texas. Two of her four children live nearby. Her highest hope is that her stories transport the reader to an awesome new world and touch hearts to seek a deeper spiritual relationship with the Lord Jesus. To learn more of Anne, visit her at http://www.AnneGreeneAuthor.com.  She writes a novel teaching class on her blog www.anneswritingupdates.blogspot.com