Helmets and Lipstick: An Army Nurse in World War Two
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Helmets and Lipstick: An Army Nurse in World War Two
“Our need for many more of these girls is urgent, and this book is intended to tell a bit about the trials and tribulations, the fun and the thrills, to be experienced as a member of the Corps.â€
Helmets and Lipstick is the first-hand account of Second Lieutenant Ruth Haskell, chronicling her time spent as a combat nurse with U.S. troops in North Africa during Operation Torch.
Helmets and Lipstick also served as a call-to-action for the nurses in the U.S. who had not yet joined the war effort.
From deployment to the journey to North Africa via Scotland and London, Lt. Haskell tells her story with a dry wit and humor, perfectly portraying the comradery between the nurses and the Allied soldiers fighting in North Africa at the time.
She provides touching accounts of the lighter side of life in wartime, recalling the card games, dances and even Christmas celebrations that took place.
But these nurses were members of the U.S. Army and went through the same trials and tribulations of war as the male soldiers.
U.S. troops came under heavy fire throughout Operation Torch and Haskell’s group learned to nurse in these nearly impossible conditions, receiving tough training and expected to rise to the same high standards as the soldiers in combat.
Helmets and Lipstick, which was first published at the height of the war in 1944, is a classic account of combat nursing in World War Two, an important addition to the literature of the war in North Africa and of the history of non-combatants in the Second World War.