An Officer And A Lady

One of the negative consequences of the 1978 integration of the various women's auxiliaries into the mainstream of the U.S. military was a loss of institutional memory. The Women in Military Service for America Memorial Foundation was established, in part, to preserve a thread of history by documenting and celebrating the rich and varied experiences of women in the U.S. military. From 1942 to 1945, Lieutenant Colonel Betty Bandel (retired) served in the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC, later WAC, the Women's Army Corps), eventually heading the WAC Division of the Army Air Force. During these years she wrote hundreds of letters to family and friends tracing her growth from an enthusiastic recruit, agog in the presence of public figures such as Eleanor Roosevelt (code named Rover), to a seasoned officer and leader. Bandel was one of the Corps' most influential senior officers. Her letters are rich with detail about the WAC's contribution to the war effort and the inner workings of the first large, non-nurse contingent of American military women. In addition, her letters offer a revealing look at the wartime emergence of professional women. Perhaps for the first time, women oversaw and directed hundreds of thousands of personnel, acquired professional and personal experiences, and built networks that would guide and influence them well past their war years. Thus, Betty Bandel's story is not only an intimate account of one woman's military experience during World War II but part of the larger story of women's history and progress.

During the Second World War, more than 4,000 civilian nurses enlisted as Nursing Sisters, a specially created all-female officers' rank of the Canadian Armed Forces. They served in all three armed force branches and all the major theatres of war, yet nursing as a form of war work has long been under-explored. An Officer and a Lady fills that gap. Cynthia Toman analyzes how gender, war, and medical technology intersected to create a legitimate role for women in the masculine environment of the military and explores the incongruous expectations placed on military nurses as "officers and ladies."

A collection of early stories from the man who created Nero Wolfe Bill Farden is an experienced burglar. He gains entry to the house without effort, and his ears tell him the inhabitants are asleep. He pockets the silver and moves to the kitchen, to fill his stomach with strawberry shortcake. When the cook tiptoes downstairs, Bill disables her with chloroform. Upstairs, he ties the man of the house to his bedframe. In the next room he finds a little girl, and is touched by her helplessness until she pulls a gun on him. The nine-year-old is Major Wentworth, of the Girls’ Military Auxiliary, and the revolver is as long as her arm. In these early stories, a young Rex Stout showed the talent for comic action that would make the Nero Wolfe novels enduring classics. In Stout’s world, there is no thug more dangerous than a determined little girl.

Air Force Captain Judith Clarke, assigned to a missile base in Cheyenne, Wyoming, faces difficult decisions in both her personal life and career as she struggles to cope with an alcoholic friend and co-worker and her love for civilian Wade Lowell

THE NABOB'S RETURN An officer in the East India Trading Company, Matthew Beresford has made a life a world away from England and his father's malevolence. Now it's time for Matthew to return home. There he finds Miss Imogen Priestley, who's worked tirelessly to save the Thornfield estate from ruin. Cold and aloof, Matthew gradually thaws as he begins to imagine a new life—with Imogen. But he's torn—the blistering heat of India will wilt his English rose, unless he can vanquish his demons and find his home at last with her….

A proper English lady battles her desire for a rakish officer as Napoleon marches into Brussels in this sexy Regency romance. Major Hal Carlow was a fine soldier, but he was also a flirt, a rake and a scoundrel! In general, he tried to steer clear of proper young ladies—no fun at all—and spend time with the sort of women who appreciated his finer qualities. . . . Miss Julia Tresilian’s duty was to find a husband, but her prospective suitors bored her to tears. Yet even talking to the incorrigible Hal Carlow was dangerous to her marriage prospects, let alone anything more. . . .

Originally published in UK: London: Constable & Robinson, 2013.