A remarkable Red Cross Clubmobile Captain on the job in wartime England and France

"Excellent. Historian James H. Madison has done a marvelous job of detective work in putting together Richardson's story. A major strength of this work is the careful way that Madison has placed the letters and diary of Richardson within their larger historical context. What emerges from all of his effort is a remarkable book."
— Judy Barrett Litoff, author of We're in This War, Too: Letters from American Women in Uniform

Elizabeth Richardson was a Red Cross volunteer who worked in a 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 astute observer. Her letters and diaries reveal an intelligent, independent, and personable woman. In his commentary, James H. Madison provides fascinating insight into her life, the activities of the Red Cross Clubmobiles, and the war. This book is an exceptional window into a past that is all too quickly fading from memory.

James H. Madison is Thomas and Kathryn Miller Professor of History at Indiana University, Bloomington. He is author of A Lynching in the Heartland: Race and Memory in America and numerous other books. He lives in Bloomington, Indiana.