NCW Libraries

The award-winning New York Times bestseller about the American women who secretly served as codebreakers during World War II—a "prodigiously researched and engrossing" (New York Times) book that "shines a light on a hidden chapter of American history" (Denver Post).
Recruited by the U.S. Army and Navy from small towns and elite colleges, more than ten thousand women served as codebreakers during World War II. While...

One of just a handful of women reporting on the Vietnam War, Kate Webb was captured by North Vietnamese troops and presumed dead--until she emerged from the jungle waving a piece of white parachute material after 23 days in captivity. Le Ly Hayslip enjoyed a peaceful early childhood in a Vietnamese farming village before war changed her life forever. Brutalized by all sides, she escaped to the United States, where she eventually founded two humanitarian...

Discusses how in the 1940s, women broke free from traditional gender roles by piloting aircraft both on the homefront and in combat, making critical contributions to the Allied victory in World War II.

"From New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Chiaverini, a bold, revelatory novel about one of the great untold stories of World War I-the women of the US Army Signal Corps, who broke down gender barriers in the military, smashed the workplace glass ceiling, and battled a pandemic as they helped lead the Allies to victory. In June 1917, General John Pershing arrived in France to establish American forces in Europe. He immediately found himself...

"Although war was traditionally seen as the purview of men, the realities of the Civil War often brought women into the conflict. They served as nurses, sutlers and washerwomen. Some even disguised themselves as men and joined the fight on the battlefield. In the border state of Missouri, where Southern sympathies ran deep, women sometimes clashed with occupying Union forces because of illegal, covert activities like spying, smuggling and delivering...

During World War II, a light-skinned African American girl "passes" for white in order to join the Women Airforce Service Pilots.

After glamorous American singer Claire Phillips opened her own night club in Manila, using the proceeds to secretly feed starving American POWs, she also began working as a spy, chatting up Japanese military men and passing their secrets along to local guerilla resistance fighters. Australian Army nurse Vivian Bullwinkel, stationed in Singapore then shipwrecked in the Dutch East Indies, became the sole survivor of a horrible massacre by Japanese soldiers....

"December 1941. War has erupted in the Pacific, spelling danger for Gina Capelli Thorpe, an American expat living in Manila. When the Japanese invade and her husband goes missing, Gina flees with her daughter to the Zambales Mountains to avoid capture--or worse. Desperate for money, medicine, and guns, the resistance recruits Gina to join their underground army and smuggles her back to Manila. There, she forges a new identity and opens a nightclub,...

Women Vietnam Veterans: Our Untold Stories, by Donna Lowery, a Vietnam veteran, chronicles the participation of American military women during the Vietnam War. This little-known group of an estimated 1,200 women from the Army, Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy left its mark in Vietnam from 1962 to 1973. They served in a myriad of duties from intelligence analysts, flight controllers, clerk-typists, translators, physical therapists, dieticians and communications...

"When France falls to Germany in 1940, wealthy socialite Violet St. Croix could honor her parent's wishes and ride out the war on the French Riviera in comfort with lavish parties and couture gowns. Instead she defies the expectations of her time and travels to London to join General de Gaulle's Free French forces. Despite doubts because she's never worked a day in her life, Violet uses her love of driving fast cars to her advantage and eventually...