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Review

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful. Memoirs present wartime experiences for a new generationBy Jeffrey D. StephaniukFrances Martin Day; Phyllis Spence; and Barbara Ladouceur; eds.; Women Overseas: Memoirs of the Canadian Red Cross Corps (Overseas Detachment). Vancouver: Ronsdale Press; 1998. Women Overseas is a collection of memoirs of 31 women who volunteered to work with the Canadian Red Cross Corps overseas during the Second World War. Included here are also stories of Canadian Red Cross Corps personnel who served in the Korean War. The individual stories are based on recollections many years after the war; notes from diaries and letters; and archives of the Red Cross Overseas clubs of Victoria an Vancouver. As some of the contributors have since passed away; the book becomes a legacy many people who have veterans in their families wish they were able to have on paper. For example; we have the contribution of Audrey C. Kitching; who became the wife of Major-General George Kitching after returning home. The reader is presented with the lives of these volunteers in their various wartime phases: civilian life prior to joining the Red Cross; training in Canada and awaiting word to travel to Great Britain in the ocean-going convoys characteristic of wartime; descriptions of experiences in France or Italy; or in the case of the 1950-1953 war; in Korea. Even if a reader's first interest is the military history of the Second World War; this book offers much information about such topics as the build-up to D-Day in June; 1944 or the extent of civilian casualties in Normandy after the June-August; 1944 war; where an estimated 40;000 civilians were killed. From the memoirs there are narrations of incidents when the Red Cross staff would meet wounded soldiers being evacuated out of battle; with the mud of the battlefield; as one author describes; still permeating their clothing and boots. In such encounters; the women at the field hospitals expressed surprise at how much the soldiers felt a need to talk about their battle experiences and under what circumstances they became wounded. While other books provide more of a structured account of how the hospitals and evacuation routes were established; the reader does learn much from Women Overseas about the workings of General Hospitals; or the more forward field hospitals; and Casualty Clearing Stations. And much is presented about the workings of the Canadian Red Cross Overseas: the duties as ambulance drivers; escort officers; food administration; and handicrafts officers; working with such groups as blind veterans. The organization is described as finding much success in its work in Great Britain and on the continent in its work with soldiers and civilians; as well as in its liaison with its counterparts among the allies. Examples of the dangers of the work are also described in the memoirs. For example; in her account of "Sunny Italy wasn't warm or sunny"; Dorothy Falkner Burogoyne Doolittle; from St. Catherine's; Ontario; describes what had happened to the No. 14 General Hospital that had been sent to Italy before her group. They were on a convoy that was bombed in the Mediterranean in early November; 1943. "No lives had been lost; but they had lost all their possessions; and word had got back to London that the Red Cross girls at No. 14 needed anything and everything." Women Overseas accomplishes much more than was perhaps intended as a record of personal accounts of the Canadian Red Cross Corps (Overseas Detachment). The reader is presented with a work that educates about Canadians in the Second World War through biographical narrations of women who were part of the support structure both for our soldiers and for civilians in such countries as Great Britain; France; Belgium; and Italy during the Second World War. As an important addition; so as not to neglect the Korean War; the addition of those memoirs are also most welcomed. Such a book offers great ideas for further research. On a personal note; Helen M. Egan's chapter; "We found the drivers very protective of us" mentions a reference to Jean Lamb; who "had already worked in Italy with the Canadian offensive which had pushed up from Sicily; but she had returned when the order came through that all married girls had to return to London." My father was a batman to a Captain Lamb in Italy; until the officer's death. Now I have something close to home to research. It is such little aspects of the vast and complicated story of Canadians in war that help a person continue with an interest to learn more and more.