The Stuff of Nightmares - A Blast from the Past

This post was first published on October 13, 2020. WW2 Romance Author Eleri Grace can be counted on to write thrilling romantic stories that immerse her readers in the realities of llfe during WW2.

By Eleri Grace

I too don’t write horror, suspense, paranormal or another genre that might have a classic “scary scene.” I write WWII historical novels – what’s scary about that?

            Well, more than might be readily apparent. As Judith noted, real life presents plenty of scary situations, and war certainly amplifies dangerous situations.

            One of the scariest scenes I’ve written tracks along with what is a fairly common nightmare for many people. How many times have you jerked awake, heart pounding, with the sense that you are free falling? Probably at least a few times in your life, I would wager.

            Fairly early in my drafting process for my debut novel, I realized that my hero Jack Nielsen was afraid of heights. A common fear, sure, but Jack is a pilot. How can a pilot cope with a fear of heights? It seems counter-intuitive, and I was initially intrigued with whether that was too outlandish. So I googled “pilots fear of heights,” and it turns out that research shows that acrophobia is markedly, dramatically higher in the pilot population than among non-pilots. Some studies indicate up to 90% of pilots have a fear of heights. So I asked my teenage son, an avid flight simulator who wants to be a pilot and spends quite a bit of time with like-minded young adults: “Yes,” he nodded. “Most of us are afraid of heights.” It turns out that, as my son indicated, most pilots feel very in control in the cockpit, thus keeping their natural acrophobia at bay.

            But in combat? No, in combat, a pilot faces far more threats than usual to his or her ability to feel – and be -- in control of the plane. And that was the stuff of nightmares – both for Jack and for ME.

           

I read so many non-fiction accounts of WW2 bailout scenes that I woke up with that free fall sensation far more in that one year than at any other time in my life. But I knew that Jack would have to jump eventually, and I forced myself to write it, knowing his experience might yank me from sleep for many months or years to come.

 

    “No more time! Out!” Hank pushed him closer to the hatch.

    Jack froze. His stomach lurched and dropped to his ankles, and his heart thrumped in his throat like a staccato fusillade of artillery. He swayed and gripped a handle on the hatch door with his good hand. “Go ahead,” he yelled.

    Hank shook his head violently. “You gotta jump!” he screamed in Jack’s ear.

    Waves of dizziness roiled him. Jack’s legs were as numb as his injured hand. No. No way. There was absolutely no way he could jump out into the clouds.

    Hank pried at Jack’s fingers, locked around the hatch handle in a death grip. “Damn it, let go!” He pulled hard on Jack’s waist, and they stumbled back to the narrow catwalk of the bomb bay.

    Before Jack could clamp his hand around the handle again, Hank put the chute rip cord into Jack’s uninjured hand and closed his fingers around it. Then he shoved hard with both hands in the middle of Jack’s back.

    Jack was out, free-falling in the icy slipstream, tumbling end over end. Out of control, exactly as he had always dreaded in his imagination.

    The ground rushed toward him. Slow down, slow down, slow down!

    The ring. The ripcord D-ring. Hank had put it in his hand. Jack jerked his hand downward.

    The parachute burst out of the chest pack and opened above him with a resounding crack. His body jerked upward.

    A loud, sustained bang sounded behind him. Jack turned his head, horrified to see his trusty, much-loved ship exploding in mid-air, engulfed in fiery flames.

 

Being the hero, Jack does land safely. But does he connect up with Allied troops or the German forces who imprison him in a wretched POW camp? Does he encounter German civilians who might decide to exact vigilante justice against him as another terror flieger?

You can read more of his experiences and his love story with Red Cross Girl Vivian in my debut novel, Courage to be Counted.

As the bombs fall on Europe, their love affair must survive a deadly war…

Vivian Lambert wants to do her part. When she wins a coveted overseas post with the Red Cross, she focuses on her war service. Falling hard for a sexy pilot wasn't part of her plan.

Jack Nielsen has a mission. Motivated by patriotic duty and desire to avenge the death of his best friend, Jack commands a ten-man B-17 crew. Keeping himself and his men alive in the fire-filled skies over Europe will require Jack's full focus. Romancing a headstrong Red Cross Girl is a distraction he knows he shouldn't indulge.

While Vivian's work takes her across France and into the heart of Nazi Germany, mounting casualties drive Jack to confront his dwindling odds of survival. As Allied forces converge on all fronts, can Vivian and Jack's relationship withstand an excruciating battle between love and duty?

Courage to be Counted is the first book in the Clubmobile Girls series of sizzling hot historical romances. If you like brave military heroes, trailblazing heroines, and romance under fire, then you'll love Eleri Grace's page-turning tale.

 

 

Learn more about me and my writing on my website, and you can also find me on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. 

It Might as Well be Spring by Eleri Grace

As we round the corner on another spring, having cycled now fully through all the seasons under pandemic conditions, I'm reminded of the hopeful 1945 song "It Might as Well be Spring." The hit song from the Rodgers & Hammerstein musical film "State Fair" really didn't have much to do with the impending end of WWII -- in fact the war was over by the time it was recorded and released as a single in the fall of 1945. Yet to my mind it is symbolic of the fresh new springtime start that the end of the war would bring for so many and could be equally meaningful in current times as we begin to climb out of the pandemic slowly but surely. 

I'm as busy as a spider spinning daydreams

I'm as giddy as a baby on a swing

I haven't seen a crocus or a rosebud or a robin on the wing

But I feel so gay in a melancholy way

That it might as well be Spring

One of the things I always keep in the forefront of my mind when writing my WWII era novels is that no one had a crystal ball. My Red Cross Girl heroines faced the prospect of "for the duration" along with the servicemen. When they were packing up at home and in Washington after completing their training, they had no idea how many seasons would come and go before they experienced the familiarity of a hometown seasonal change once again. Many served in a climate quite unlike what they had experienced in their lifetime up to that point.

The holidays that mark the passage of the seasons were something our forces overseas observed however possible. The Red Cross Girls quashed their own homesickness in order to put on a happy face for holiday parties and dances. They knew it was important that these seasonal rituals carry on -- it was a spot of normalcy in what were extraordinary times. 

And so it goes with us. I know we're not there yet. That was true for the men and women serving overseas in 1945 -- feeling happy and hopeful "in a melancholy way," for by then everyone knew it was a matter of time. It's a matter of time on this pandemic too. Spring is in the air -- let's remain vigilant but hopeful!

Learn more about me and my writing on my website or follow me on my social media accounts at Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. 

You can find my Clubmobile Girls novels on Amazon. 

Be Careful - It's My Heart by Eleri Grace

The drama and larger-than-life grand love affairs of the 1940s was one of the things that drew me to write romance novels set during the pivotal years of WWII. Everything from the era's glamorous Hollywood stars and box office hits to the crooning ballads of Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra sets the stage for epic love stories.

The war provides the perfect antagonist -- it cruelly separates, endangers, wounds, and forever shapes the character and life path of my heroes and heroines.

But in addition to the romantic love central to my novels, I think some of the most emotional depth in my work comes from the subplots relating to family and friendships that I weave into my Clubmobile Girls series.

In my first novel, there's the love Vivian has for her fellow Red Cross Girl and best friend Mabs, and the fierce love Jack has for all the men in his B-17 crew. There's the greater love of humanity that threatens to crush Vivian's spirit as she watches the mounting casualties among the bomber crews. She's terrified of losing Jack of course, but her heartache for all the Allied forces is genuine. In my second novel, Skip's heartbreak over the loss of his beloved older brother at Pearl Harbor drives him and colors all his actions, while my heroine Hadley wrestles with her own demons and the loss of a dear friend years ago.

Showing a range of love relationships in our novels adds power and resonates with readers. I read extensively in the genre of war memoirs as background research for each of my novels. I also read a few "big-picture" books for whichever locale I'm focusing on for that novel. For my debut novel, I started with "Masters of the Air," which remains one of my all-time favorite WWII nonfiction books. There are quite a number of similar books and combat memoirs written by the men who fought in the skies over Europe. I was particularly touched by the theme that cropped up again and again in these accounts by and about the bomber crews -- those ten men became an insular and tight-knit family.

They were truly brothers-in-arms and dropped all boundaries that military rank, education, race or social class might normally have divided them. They fiercely defended each other -- both up in the air in combat and on the ground in the give-and-take of life on a military base and on recreational leave trips. That's one of the love relationships I'm most proud of in my both my novels -- the bromance that was a bromance before it was cool, the love that was so prevalent among the valiant crews of our airmen.

Love is all around us, and I think our readers appreciate when we take advantage of our ability to show the range of human experience with love in all its forms in our stories. 

Learn more about me and my writing on my website or follow me on my social media accounts at Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. 

You can find my Clubmobile Girls novels on Amazon. 

Accentuate the Positive by Eleri Grace

Celebration – celebrating yourself in particular – is our theme this month. Like Luanna blogged last week, I tend to indulge in rewards or treats when I reach goals I set for myself or achieve a special milestone, but as she notes, I’ve not really thought about it as celebrating myself so much as celebrating the achievement. Perhaps I really should try harder to give myself credit – get out of the “box-checker” mentality to borrow a phrase from Michelle Obama’s memoir and instead focus more on cultivating self-love.

One facet of finding self-love is practicing mindfulness – being fully present and not in a constant state of reaction and over-reaction to what’s going on around us. Heightened awareness of life’s small joys is one of the many blessings I’ve counted during these pandemic times.

Goals and milestones don’t have to be momentous or consequential to merit a celebration – a distinction that is more important than ever right now. I know I’m not the only writer or creative type struggling to find creativity within the chaos around us these days. But instead of berating myself for not using this time to storyboard or brainstorm my next novel, I’m trying to focus on what I am accomplishing rather than what I’ve not done.

I may not have plotted the next Clubmobile Girls novel, but I have done quite a bit of background reading. That novel is percolating, and its characters will burst to life any time now.

I may not have used this time to get into the habit of posting new and enticing content on my social media accounts on a regular basis, but I have done an online class relating to author advertising that I think will improve my ability to promote my new release later this month.

It’s worth celebrating the small things every bit as much as life’s larger moments. A positive mindset is one powerful tool toward truly experiencing gratitude, self-love, and living more fully. It's a habit I hope I will have cultivated enough to carry forward once we return to "normalcy" or more aptly the "new normalcy," whatever that may look like.

 As Johnny Mercer sang so memorably in 1944:

You’ve got to accentuate the positive

Eliminate the negative

And latch on to the affirmative

Don’t mess with Mister In-Between

And speaking of accentuating the positive, I have a new release coming out on May 22nd -- just in time for Memorial Day weekend. Pre-orders for the ebook version are live on Amazon here.

In love, as in war, truth can be the greatest casualty.

When her New Orleans editor refuses to grant war correspondent credentials to a woman reporter, Hadley Claverie finds another route to the front lines: overseas duty with the Red Cross. She wants nothing more than to carve out a career as a respected journalist, but a sexy pilot set on playing by the rules undermines her determination to expose truths about the war, no matter the cost.

Struggling to overcome emotional trauma linked to Pearl Harbor, once-freewheeling B-25 bomber pilot Skip Masterson longs to prove he is worthy to carry on his brother’s legacy. Duty compels him to avenge the horrors his brother and friends suffered aboard the U.S.S. Arizona, but all Skip really wants is peace on a quiet porch back home. His heart has other plans, in the form of an intrepidly curious Red Cross girl who threatens his resolve to fly straight and subvert his hell-raising past.

As Allied forces wrest control of the Pacific, one island at a time, and the military taps skilled pilots for a highly-classified and unprecedented bombing mission from which Skip may not return, Hadley’s journalistic fire places her squarely in an ethical drop zone where truth harms, secrets protect, and love just might be the most harmful weapon of all.

From the sunny beaches of Australia to the lush and oppressive jungles of New Guinea, Carry a Crusading Spirit is a sexy and thrilling continuation of Clubmobile Girls, a series that champions the trailblazing role of women in WWII.

Learn more about me and my writing on my website, and you can also find me on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. 

You can purchase my debut novel through the links below.

Amazon US  ~  Amazon UK  ~  Amazon CA  ~  Amazon AU  ~  Google ~ Nook  ~ Kobo

Capturing the Memories by Eleri Grace

Well, this month’s prompt definitely presented problems. My favorite first –writing or non-writing – experience. So many possible angles!

I wondered if I could highlight a “first” relating to one of my hobbies: reading, travel, scrapbooking, or genealogy research. And if you’ve been following me here, you’ve probably noted that I like to tie my blogs into my WWII-themed author brand.

Then I remembered that I created a scrapbook of my first visit to the National WWII Museum in New Orleans in 2016 and my first WWII travel tour a few months later.  The National WWII Museum graciously allowed me the opportunity to read through their holdings from one former Red Cross Girl while I was there. All told, I spent the better part of 3 days at the museum and still had the sense that I was rushing through parts of it. If you've not visited it, I highly recommend adding it to your travel bucket list!

Their exhibits, arranged thematically around the different theaters of the war in many cases, are incredibly immersive. In the Road to Berlin exhibit, one moves from the earliest battle scenes in North Africa and Italy to the reconstructed Nissen hut from an American bomber base in England,

to the hedgerow country of Normandy, and then through the icy forested environs of the Battle of the Bulge,

and on finally through the bomb-torn rooftops and crumbling ruins of Germany in the waning months of the war in Europe.

            This photo gives you a flavor of the Road to Tokyo exhibit.

Complete with audio of jungle sounds and clips of period movies on the movie screens, this portion of the exhibit vividly evokes the war experience in the Southwest Pacific. From a scrapbooking standpoint, I enjoyed the opportunity to play with textured embellishments and texture-themed background papers in this album.

            “Masters of the Air” by Donald Miller is hands-down my favorite non-fiction work on the Eighth Air Force in WWII Europe, and I’m still thrilled that I splurged on the Miller-led tour that took us from London to the old bomber bases in East Anglia, lovingly restored to their former glory by local villagers over the last few decades. At each base, we had a chance to meet and mingle with older locals who were children during the war. Their stories were captivating, sometimes funny, sometimes poignant, but always related with a sense of awe and appreciation for the American boys who took the war to Germany years before D-Day and at such enormous cost.

            This bomber base was restored over the course of nearly 20 years, and I got a weird chill when I realized that I had attended a study abroad program not more than a few miles from this site in 1989, the year the local citizens began the restoration process.

Note the photos of original art that they were able to retain in the renovation. Living history is alive and well in England – at each bomber base, scores of re-enactors populated the base.

            The 100th Bomb Group at Thorpe Abbotts had a fantastic display of photos and memorabilia from the Red Cross Girls who had served at that location. One of the curators at the American Military Cemetery in Cambridge helped me locate the grave of a Red Cross Girl who died in a plane crash in Ireland late in the war.

            I enjoyed pulling out this album and sharing some of the highlights with you. Both these trips were a memorable first for me, and though I’m years behind with some of my scrapbooking projects, at least this one made it to the top of the heap.

Learn more about me and my writing on my website, and you can also find me on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. 

You can purchase my debut novel through the links below.

Amazon US  ~  Amazon UK  ~  Amazon CA  ~  Amazon AU  ~  Google ~ Nook  ~ Kobo

Stepping Outside the Comfort Zone by Eleri Grace

Sometimes the prompt for the monthly blog stumps me, and I’m forced to ruminate for a few days before settling on the best theme and angle. With this one, I immediately knew how I would approach it. You see, both my heroines and I know a bit about marching to the beat of a different drummer.

            The Red Cross recruited extraordinary and accomplished women for overseas assignments. Even though the Red Cross eventually deployed nearly 6,000 women overseas during WWII and the occupation years, they had exacting standards for potential recruits. Only one in six applicants was successful in the application and interview process. Marked not only by higher education and professional experience than most women of the era possessed, the women selected by the Red Cross also possessed some or all of the following attributes in some measure: poise, charm, good conversational skills, self-assurance, independence, ingenuity, adaptability, stamina, and creativity. Even in the early days of the war, the Red Cross knew they needed self-starters who could draw on a range of varied life experience to do unprecedented work.

The women who served as Red Cross Girls were exceptional and ahead of their time. One Red Cross Girl writing back to one of her training instructors from Europe said, “Some fellas think we’re brave, but we really don’t know enough to be scared. Some think we’d be better off at home, where a woman’s place used to be . . . about 200 years ago.” I think most of us probably find it astonishing that this 1940s woman viewed the women-as-only-homemakers model as an outdated norm. For some of these women then, the war presented another way to break free of the strictures imposed back home. Based on memoirs, many of them did go on to start or continue a successful career outside the home, whether they married or remained single. 

Their unique qualities didn’t shield them entirely from fear or from experiencing profound anxiety, stress, and war-weary despair. The same woman writing to her teacher noted: “Red Cross hasn’t done badly at all in picking personnel. Working here is what you’ve been all your life, but disciplined and worn down smooth, so that you smile when you’re dying.”

While they could request a transfer back to the United States after serving two years overseas, most of them felt a duty to continue on in their assignments. They had signed on for the duration after all, and they meant to see that through. Imagine being a young woman serving overseas near the front lines in France or Germany or on a bomber base in Guadalcanal or working on a train traversing Burma or Iran or at a cold and desolate station in Iceland. They had such courage, didn’t they?

So, I promised that I had something in common with my heroines, but I have to confess, I’m not sure I would have had the guts to do what they did. Sometimes when lying awake at night and thinking about a scene, I’m struck by the astonishing leap of faith it must have taken for them to board a troopship with destination unknown, duration unknown, dangers unknown, and even more by the courage it must have taken to stick it out.

But writing their stories is my own way of marching to the beat of a different drummer, for the industry professionals all said that WWII couldn’t sell as romance. Sure, there are WWII stories within Christian inspirational romance, and there are certainly plenty of mainstream historical fiction novels set during WWII (though the industry again says that too is glutted and out of fashion). I’m in uncharted waters to a large degree – though my novels are written with traditional romance novel beats and the expected HEA, they incorporate the serious historical research of mainstream historical fiction with a few hot and steamy interludes. Marketing has been a challenge, but reader enthusiasm tells me I’m on the right track. In any event, I’m living the maxim of writing what you love, and it is certainly making me happy.

Learn more about me and my writing on my website, and you can also find me on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. 

You can purchase my debut novel through the links below.

Amazon US  ~  Amazon UK  ~  Amazon CA  ~  Amazon AU  ~  Google ~ Nook  ~ Kobo

All in Good Fun?

By Eleri Grace

Even a war didn’t stop crew and passengers from participating in a naval tradition dating back centuries: the Crossing the Line ceremony. Tradition held that as a ship approached the equator, those who had made the crossing before, trusty “shellbacks,” initiate equator-crossing virgins or “tadpoles” (I replaced the actual term used for the initiates, which has unfortunate racist connotations, with tadpoles in my novel).  

Charged with entering the domain of King Neptune without permission, tadpoles must earn a shellback card that will give them permission to freely roam the Seven Seas by surviving a series of time-honored rituals. At a riotous pageant with participants sporting outrageous costumes that is held the night before the ceremony, King Neptune and Queen Amphitrite, along with a few other members of the “royal family,” are selected by popular vote.

In the next novel in my Clubmobile Girls series, my heroine Hadley joins her fellow tadpoles in navigating through the various proscribed ordeals of the Crossing the Line ceremony. All the Red Cross Girl memoirs from women who served in the Pacific theater that I found described participation in the ceremony. It was – and still is – permissible to decline to take part in the tradition. However, Red Cross Girls are nothing if not adventuresome and fun-loving. Though I did not find any photographs depicting Red Cross Girls, nurses, WACs or other women as participants, you might like to view this restored color footage of a WWII-era Crossing the Line ceremony from aboard the USS Knox. 

National Archives

An obstacle course typically features first in the ceremony, followed by various stops leading to the court of King Neptune. The first stop is often the royal photographer, whose camera might take a picture or might unpredictably shoot dye in your face. Next up is likely to be the royal doctor who might swab your throat with hot sauce. The royal dentist might rinse your mouth with a foul concoction of eggs, beer, and fish soup or something equally horrendous. The royal barber is then apt to shampoo your hair with some foul substance bearing an odor guaranteed to linger long after you’ve earned your shellback card, or, worse, cut or shave off your hair.

At some point amidst these stops, the tadpoles reach the Court of King Neptune and are sentenced for the crime of entering his domain without permission. Punishments are often comical and theatrical: playing childish games such as Ring around the Rosie for the amusement of the court or singing the national anthem backwards.

The end of the ceremony unvaryingly involves immersion and dunking the initiates, a conclusion rife with symbolism.

Collection of Imperial War Museum (from Wikimedia Commons)

After shellback cards are issued to all the initiates, a raucous party with free-flowing alcoholic beverages typically ensues.

            Farcical yes, but many of the standard elements in the ritual themselves “cross the line” into hazing. Today most navies officially proscribe observation of a weakened version of the Crossing the Line ceremony – an attempt to keep the fun without the bullying. Some cruise lines now offer a slapstick version of the ceremony to passengers. A writer who endured the ceremony in recent years wrote an insightful account of his experience, including photographs and his discussions about the origin and purpose of the ritual with a folklore expert.

          #FunNotFun might be an apt hashtag for Crossing the Line experiences.  

Learn more about me and my writing on my website, and you can also find me on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. 

You can purchase my debut novel through the links below.

Amazon US  ~  Amazon UK  ~  Amazon CA  ~  Amazon AU  ~  Google ~ Nook  ~ Kobo

May All Your Christmases be White

It may have been a white Christmas in 1944, but it certainly wasn't merry and bright.

This was especially true in western Europe, where the Germans had launched a last-ditch counter-offensive, now known as the Battle of the Bulge. Bitterly cold temperatures and heavy snow storms added to the miserable conditions endured by Allied forces.

(Library of Congress)

Our troops weren't the only Americans trapped by the wintry battle. Four Red Cross clubmobile crews were out serving units when the Germans attacked and were themselves trapped behind enemy lines. One Red Cross Girl, Peggy Henry, had been working at a Red Cross club in the resort town of Clervaux, Luxembourg and escaped under fire with a tank battle raging in the streets around her. In my novel Courage to be Counted, my heroine Vivian's experience is a dramatized composite of the harrowing ordeals of these Clubmobile crews and Peggy Henry's daring escape from Clervaux. Henry was later awarded the Bronze Star by President Truman for her bravery.

By Christmas Day 1944, most of these women were out of immediate danger. The women of Clubmobile Group B joined soldiers of the 1st Division to sing Christmas carols in the streets of Herve, Belgium on Christmas Eve, and though mixed with flashes of tracers and artillery fire in the sky, the brilliant stars brought a sense of peace and joy. The women of Clubmobile Group E later reported that they spent Christmas morning near Spa, Belgium diving into foxholes and serving doughnuts and coffee to the soldiers between alerts.

(National Archives)

It was Clubmobile Group F, however, who experienced the most dramatic Christmas of all, for they had been based at Bastogne in December and it was their Clubmobile crews who were most in peril at the time the Germans attacked. The crew of the Clubmobile named the Cheyenne were trapped at Vielsalm. One of Cheyenne's crew members, Jill Pitts, learned that her twin brother Jack had been killed in an early skirmish of the Battle of the Bulge, mere days after she had last seen him. Though she grieved for her brother, she had little choice but to carry on, especially given her own predicament. The town mayor of Vielsalm presented the women with an incendiary bomb: "To blow up your Clubmobile if the Boche should come." By the 21st, the US Army's 82nd Airborne had moved in, and the battle drew nearer. Early the next morning, the women were awakened and told they had a narrow window in which to escape. They loaded their Clubmobile with their Christmas gifts of nylons, perfume and food treats, bags of mail for the troops, and as much doughnut flour as they could carry. Following close behind a Jeep assigned to guide them out of Vielsalm, the women waved to the American soldiers lining their withdrawal route from this embattled village. In a bid to prevent German units from following, GIs threw up roadblocks as the Clubmobile roared past.


Still struggling to escape later that night, the Jeep guiding them ran into another vehicle. The women moved the injured men into the back of the Clubmobile, pushed the Jeep off the road, hitched the Jeep's trailer with its crucial supplies to the Clubmobile and drove on. An MP directed them around a tank battle, and they spent the night in an aid station. It took them until Christmas Eve to connect up with their main group at Charleville, France. They arrived in time to share some spiked Christmas punch and fruitcake with the other crews. While singing Christmas carols with the GIs that night, a German bomber dropped a bomb that shook the building. "When the ceiling didn't come down, they resumed singing."

After a day of serving crews and dodging bombs on Christmas Day, the crews of Clubmobile Group F received a hand-delivered message from their pals in the 101st Airborne, then mired in the Battle of Bastogne (immortalized in HBO's "Band of Brothers"): "Still here and pitching. Don't worry about us - we're doing okay. Thanks for the doughnut flour. We captured it from Jerry, and we're making pancakes from it every day. . . . See you soon - and have the doughnuts ready!"

Central Illinois WWII Stories, a video project of Illinois Public Media, created a stirring documentary tribute to Jill (Pitts) Knappenberger and her crewmates Phyllis and Helen and their dramatic escape from the siege at Vielsalm with the help of the 82nd Airborne.

Wishing all of you a happy holiday season, however and wherever you may celebrate!

You can learn more about me and my writing on my website, and you can also find me on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram.

You can purchase my debut novel through the links below.

Amazon US  ~  Amazon UK  ~  Amazon CA  ~  Amazon AU  ~  Google ~ Nook  ~ Kobo