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An Army in Skirts: The World War II Letters of Frances Debra

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"An Army in Skirts" is a time machine built from the letters and memories of a young woman who served her country in uniform during World War II. Frances Brown takes us into her world in a straight forward, understated, and often times startling manner. She seems to have taken in stride the daily dangers from bombings in England and France. In contrast, her letters home speak of ordinary but very interesting details of daily life as a WAC, because war information was censored. Together, the two viewpoints make for a facsinating read into our parents' or grandparents' world. In particular, I was so impressed with the morals of her day, even in the midst of war.

An Army in Skirts: The World War II Letters of Frances Debra collects the letters Frances DeBra Brown sent to her family, while she served in the Women's Army Corps in World War II as a draftsman at American headquarters in London and Paris. Chronicling her WW II service from her training at Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia to her assignment at an army air field in Florida to surviving buzz bomb and V-2 rocket attacks in London and witnessing the devastation of Paris a scant two weeks after the city's liberation, An Army in Skirts is the candid testimony of a woman's perspective - thoughtfully discussing the connections Brown made with individual people and the simple day-to-day matters of survival as well as larger issues of war and peace. Highly recommended.