Slinging Doughnuts for the Boys

📖 The Scoop

Elizabeth Richardson was a Red Cross volunteer who worked in a Red Cross Clubmobile unit during World War II until her death in a plane crash in July 1945. Her job was to provide free doughnuts and coffee, cigarettes and gum to American soldiers on duty in England, and later in France. More importantly, she and her colleagues provided a slice of home. They were American girls with whom soldiers could talk, flirt, dance, and perhaps find companionship. For the most part, the job was not hazardous -- except when V-1 rockets rained down on London -- but it required physical endurance as well as the honed skills of a counselor. Liz Richardson was a witty writer and observer. Her letters and diaries reveal an intelligent, independent woman.

Genre: Biography & Autobiography / Women (fancy, right?)