Nightingales, Bluebirds and Angels of Mercy

True Stories of the Courage and Heroism of Nurses on the Front Line in WWII

Series: Brave Women Who Changed the Course of WWII

Format: Paperback

Author: Elise Baker

The World Wars of the 20th century caused massive upheavals all over the world. Millions of men from every corner of the globe enlisted in the armed forces to fight, while women took the places of men in the workforce at home. Eighty years later, we still see photographs of Rosie the Riveter and women welding bombers for the Air Force.

What history often overlooks, however, are the extraordinary true-life stories of the brave women from the US, UK, Canada and Australia who enlisted in the Allied forces in their thousands to serve as nurses behind the front lines, at great danger to themselves. And while men shot to kill in the North African, European, and the Pacific theaters of war, nurses served right behind them, armed with tools of healing rather than warfare.

It's hard to imagine today what life was like during the greatest conflict in recent history, but these untold true stories of women heroes of WWII paint a vivid picture of life as a military nurse--from makeshift field hospitals in France to bombed-out station hospitals in Belgium to journeys fraught with danger on ambulance trains, air ambulances, and hospital ships.

Inside Nightingales, Bluebirds & Angels of Mercy: True Stories of the Courage and Heroism of Nurses on the Front Line in WWII, you'll learn the true stories of nurses in the Second World War, including

• what it was like for a woman to join the armed services as a nurse and travel across the world to do her duty,
• the challenges and dangers the Allied nurses faced on the front lines, as well as the camaraderie and wartime romances they experienced,
• how these women confronted changing social norms around gender and race,
• true stories of survival at the hands of enemy forces in Japanese prisoner-of-war camps, and more.

The stories of these brave women are an inspiring record of duty and selflessness. If you haven't yet met heroes such as Vivian Bullwinkel and Margot Turner, you'll definitely want to pick up Nightingales, Bluebirds & Angels of Mercy: True Stories of the Courage and Heroism of Nurses on the Front Line in WWII today