Navy Blue

A gripping and compelling dual timeline novel about three women who joined the Navy during WWI to become yeomanettes and the impact their choices have on one of their descendants in 1968. "The Girls in Navy Blue had me smiling from first page to last! When the US Navy admits women to the ranks during World War I, three intrepid yeomanettes answer the call: Blanche the dashing suffragette, Marjory the German immigrant, and Vivian the preacher's daughter on the run from the police. Friendship, duty, and the struggle of making their way in a man's world will bind the three together, and their secrets will resound through the next fifty years--until Blanche's great-niece, reeling from losses and desperate for home, will pick up the pieces. Alix Rickloff pens a lovely coming-of-age tale: brave women making waves in a war-torn world." - Kate Quinn, New York Times bestselling author 1918 - America is at war with Germany, and, for the first time in history, the US Navy has allowed women to join up alongside the men. Ten thousand of them rush to do their part. German-American Marjory Kunwald enlists in the Navy to prove her patriotism. Suffragette Blanche Lawrence to prove that women are the equal of men. And shy preacher’s daughter Viv Weston in a desperate attempt to hide from the police. Even as the US military pours into France and the war heats up, the three yeomanettes find friendship and sisterhood within the Navy. But all their plans for the future are thrown into chaos when Viv’s dark past finally catches up with her. 1968 - Newly divorced and reeling from a personal tragedy, Peggy Whitby unexpectedly inherits her estranged great-aunt Blanche’s beach cottage outside Norfolk Virginia. But her fragile peace is rattled when she begins to receive mysterious postcards dated from 1918 when Blanche served as a Navy yeomanette. Curious to learn more about her mysterious aunt and uncover the truth behind the cryptic messages, Peggy is drawn deeper into the lives of the three young Navy girls. But her digging uncovers more than she bargains for, and, as past and present collide, Peggy must decide if finding out about her aunt is worth the risk of losing herself.

In 1943 the United States is engaged in a global, life-and-death struggle with Germany, Japan, and Italy. Widespread fighting draws American men into the armed services, leaving a shortage in the countrys workforce. Women find themselves in roles normally reserved for males. WAVESWomen Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Servicesforms to integrate females into the Navy and to fill the workforce gap. Navy Blue follows four young recruits as they leave their civilian lives behind and struggle to adapt to the regimented life in the U.S. Navy. Honing her skills for management as a protge of an industrial genius, practical Lou Matteson finds herself the leader of a diverse crew of young women. Martha Jo Stuckey, the wild child of a poor ranching family, clowns her way through life. Her unfailing good humor makes the military bearable for her friends. Wealthy Eleanor LaFrance leads the privileged life even as she rebels against it. A loner by nature, Eleanor finds she needs friends to survive in an environment that demands teamwork. Shy, nave Katherine Anderson faces disappointment and betrayal by the men in her life. Her mates, providing encouragement and kindness, stand by her side. Together they form a solid sisterhood allowing them to thrive in a mans world. A tale of three unforgettable years in the lives of four young women, Navy Blue narrates the story of times when the world balanced between good and evil and speaks to the power of women and the endurance of the human spirit.

Navy Blue is a story about a seventeen year old boy from Ohio who traveled the globe experiencing things that he would have never seen from his rural community of Wapakoneta, Ohio. In the nineteen fifties there was a military draft underway that would provide this young man with mature friends and get him started on the road to life, and what would eventually become a military career. Not only would he “join the Navy and see the world”, he would also meet an interesting assortment of friends.

This study examines how intellectual and institutional developments transformed the U.S. Navy from 1873 to 1898. The period was a dynamic quarter-century in which Americans witnessed their Navy evolve. Cultures of progress—clusters of ideas, beliefs, values, and practices pertaining to modern warfare and technology—guided the Navy's transformation. The agents of naval transformation embraced a progressive ideology. They viewed science, technology, and expertise as the best means to effect change in a world contorted by modernizing and globalizing trends. Within the Navy’s progressive movement, two new cultures—Strategy and Mechanism—influenced the course of transformation. Although they shared progressive pedigrees, each culture embodied a distinctive vision for the Navy’s future.

As far as I was concerned, World War II was a snap despite blackouts, rationing, and no nylons-just tan leg makeup-"Guaranteed not to come off " ...the hem of your dress, the chair you sat on, or your date's trouser legs when dancing. In a burst of patriotism, I joined the WAVES-the Navy's version of the WAACs (only with cuter uniforms), and met some great new friends including "Candy", a movie starlet, and Howard Hughes who I thought was a radio repairman (I didn't catch his last name.) The trip from Los Angeles to Hunter College in New York was a revelation; troop trains do not have dining cars-you march to various "mess halls" from wherever the train halts. I also discovered that the subway does not run from Chicago to NYC.! Candy made boot camp a pleasure. We got to read her fan mail, and her family's chauffeur delivered weekly goodies from Schraft's and Bergdorf Goodman's (her three roommates were the best dressed-lingerie-wise-recruits in the Navy-and the only ones to gain weight inspite of all that marching.) . She also gave me the opportunity of turning down her invitation to have lunch at the Stork club with "little" Gloria Vanderbilt, and see "Carmen Jones", a big Broadway hit. I chose instead to lead a gaggle of misguided recuits in an almost futile attempt to find the Empire State building. Finally, the Navy, overlooking my southern accent and a tendency to address pilots as "honey" ("Take a wave- off, honey"), gave me one of their coveted billets as a Control Tower Operator and sent me to Atlanta, Georgia, for further training, There, I learned to drive a jeep, "fly" a plane (courtesy of the Link trainer) and to be careful where I sat on public streetcars -Jim Crow was alive and well!. Assigned to a small control tower in Corpus Christi, Texas, I met a tall, lanky "radio repairman" who laughed at almost anything I said, and was my good buddy during some dramatic changes in my life. His visits ended when I suddenly marred the "Best pilot" on the base. It was several years before I discovered that my "buddy" had been the elusive Howard Hughes. During the '80s I wrote a weekly column for Roll Call, the Washington, DC newspaper. ("Casandra's Corner" by Jil Carlson), and loved being with Ford's Theatre promoting shows, during the 70s.'The '60s were spent doing my own TV show. "Skirts Of Navy Blue" is pure escapist reading for anyone who has only seen "The War" through John Wayne's eyes.

The book, in the main, grew out of my experience as one of the first of two African American women officers in the Navy. Before describing my application, acceptance, training, assignments and friendships in the service, I outline my life up to that cruicial point. Birth and early childhood were in Pennsylvania and New York. Following my discharge from the service, I relate adventures, largely growing out of that exposure. The last third of my story includes the happy experience of my second marriage, now in its forty-third year in stark contrast to the first, which endured here and in Paris, France for less than two months. The above was written in 1996. She died in 1998.

The US Navy brought half a century of peace and free trade to the world’s waterways. But climate change and rising nationalism threaten to end this blue age. For decades, the Navy has stood sentinel over crucial waterways, ensuring safe passage of goods from nearly all nations. The result is the longest phase of peace on the waters since the Phoenicians, with rising living standards, more (total) jobs, and the dramatic decline of poverty in Asia. But these prosperous times could be at an end. Today China is building warships at an extraordinary pace. India, Japan, Vietnam, and Europe are responding with more fighting ships. What will result from China’s rising naval might, particularly in the South China Sea? As ocean resources are shaped by climate change and new discoveries, will the world share them or fight over them? What will happen if America turns against free trade? Without American investment, the world could see a rise of supply shortages and seagoing conflict that would dwarf the impact of the container ship stuck in the Suez Canal. Surveying naval history, economics, environmental threats, and great-power politics, The Blue Age makes an urgent argument about our oceans’ vital importance to the peace and prosperity of our global community.

Nicole joins the Navy and excels through training and firefighting school. She even proves herself by qualifying into the field of Explosive Ordnance Disposal. All she has to do is persuade her command to authorize a transfer into her dream job. But trapped aboard a ship and the target of sexual predators, Nicole must find a way to survive.