World War Nurses

This captivating novel tells the story of the legendary Edith Cavell, a British nurse whose duties clashed with the demands of an occupying regime during WW I.At the request of a brilliant, hot-headed surgeon, Edith went from London to Brussels to create Belgium's first school of nursing. At the height of her success, the German army marched into neutral Belgium and took over her hospital and school.

Elisabeth Eidenbenz left Switzerland in 1937 to aid children orphaned during the Spanish Civil War. Now, her work has led her to France, where she's determined to provide expectant mothers and their unborn children a refuge amid one of the worst humanitarian crises of the twentieth century. Desperate to escape the invasion of Franco's Fascist troops, Isabel Dueñas becomes one of many Spanish patriots fleeing their country. She leaves behind her husband as he fights for democracy, and she seeks asylum in a refugee camp across the border in France.

The compelling new best seller from the author of The Mersey Daughter and Winter on the Mersey. Alice Lake and her friend Edith have had everything thrown at them in their first year as district nurses in London’s East End. From babies born out of wedlock to battered wives, they’ve had plenty to keep them occupied. As rationing takes hold and Hitler’s bombers train their sights on London, there is no escaping the reality of being at war.

Although much of it is set against a backdrop of war, devastation, and destruction, it is a tale of humanity and the triumph of human spirit. There are accounts of tragedy and heartbreak but also anecdotes about hidden strength, silver linings, and humorous situations. Beginning with my grandfather Joseph Patrick Murphy, a colorful character and highly decorated veteran of the Great War, it then traces my mother Eileen's early days growing up in Liverpool.

The moving true story of how young Ukrainian Jewish piano prodigies Zhanna (alias “Anna”) and her sister Frina outplayed their pursuers while hiding in plain sight during the Holocaust. A middle grade nonfiction novel-in-verse by award-winning author Susan Hood with Greg Dawson (Zhanna’s son).

This is a love story like no other: Elinor Powell was an African-American nurse in the US military during World War II; Frederick Albert was a soldier in Hitler’s army, captured by the Allies and shipped to a prisoner-of-war camp in the Arizona desert. Like most other black nurses, Eleanor pulled a second-class assignment, in a dusty, sun-baked - and segregated - Western town. Brought together by unlikely circumstances and racist assumptions, Elinor and Frederick should have been bitter enemies; but instead, at the height of World War II, they fell in love.

Born Nigerian royalty, Princess Adenrele Ademola trained as a nurse at Guy’s Hospital in London and stepped up to serve the people of Britain when war broke out – facing both the devastation of the Blitz and the prejudice of some of the people she was trying to help. 80 years later, Ade’s great niece Yemi arrives in London clutching the Princess’s precious diaries and longs to uncover the mysteries they hold.

In January 1940, navy nurse Dorothy Still eagerly anticipated her new assignment at a military hospital in the Philippines. Her first year abroad was an adventure. She dated sailors, attended dances, and watched the sparkling evening lights from her balcony. But as 1941 progressed, signs of war became imminent. When Pearl Harbor was attacked, Dorothy and the other nurses braced for a direct assault. In that frantic dash, Dorothy transformed from a navy nurse to a war nurse. Along with the other women on the nursing staff, she provided compassionate, tireless, critical care.

As war looms in Europe, 18-year-old Jane Shaw runs the household as an unpaid servant on a meagre budget. When tragedy strikes and she loses her beloved younger brother in suspicious circumstances, Jane takes a position in service looking after Ned, a troubled young boy. Here she meets dashing David Heron, Ned's Uncle and they form an immediate attachment until she is dismissed after being accused of stealing a piece of jewellery. Returning home, Jane and her sister, Melia, are soon orphaned and left at the mercy of their Aunt Alice.

Oxford, 1914. When the the young men are drawn away to fight, it is the women who must keep going. Twin sisters Peggy and Maude work in the bindery at Oxford University Press in Jericho. Peggy is intelligent, ambitious and dreams of studying - but is often reminded that her job is to bind the books, not read them. Maude, meanwhile, is extraordinary and vulnerable. She wants nothing more than what she has, and Peggy must watch over her.

Drawing upon evidence from archives across the world, Veiled Warriors offers a compelling account of nurses' wartime experiences and a clear appraisal of their work and its contribution to the allied cause between 1914 and 1918, on both the Western and the Eastern Fronts. Nurses believed they were involved in a multi-layered battle. Primarily, they were fighting for the lives of their patients on the "second battlefield" of casualty clearing stations, transports, and military hospitals.

It’s 1943, and the district nurses have two new recruits. As the country ramps up for D-Day, the new nurses are getting to know their patients on their patch in London’s East End. Lily is quite sure of herself and doesn’t believe she has anything new to learn. She’ll find out the hard way that anyone can be made a fool of when she meets a man who promises her everything.

More than 100 US Army and Navy nurses were stationed in Guam and the Philippines at the beginning of World War II. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, five navy nurses on Guam became the first American military women of World War II to be taken prisoner by the Japanese. More than 70 army nurses survived five months of combat conditions in the jungles of Bataan and Corregidor before being captured, only to endure more than three years in prison camps.

For the district nurses of Victory Walk, there's been little time to bask in the triumph of D-day as London is facing a new threat - the buzz bombs. Everyone is terrified, never knowing where the next one will strike. Into this tense atmosphere, new nurse Iris must make her mark. She’s had more experience of nursing than many, but since arriving in East London from the countryside, she has struggled to fit in with the other staff. Meanwhile, Alice is facing an agonising wait to hear if her boyfriend, Joe, has survived D-day.

In this short 5,225 word novelette's first page Violetta, the Russian Nurse, runs into a friend, Rosa Green, who says to her: “Life has lost its meaning for me. I am going into this drug store here to buy sleeping pills to kill myself.” “What? You are going to kill yourself?” Violetta asks. “Yes, life has no value for me.” “Well, in that case, Mrs. Green, why not kill yourself like we do in Russia?” “How do you do it in Russia?” “First of all you drink some vodka. Then you eat big dinner. Not just normal dinner, but very good meal—a feast. Then you drink more vodka ...

The incredible account of Sister Betty Jeffrey OAM and the Australian war nurses who survived the bombing of evacuation ship SS Vyner Brooke in February 1942, and subsequently spent three years in Japanese prison camps in Sumatra. During those perilous years surviving in squalid conditions, Sister Jeffrey kept a secret diary of day-to-day events which, after the war, was turned into a hugely successful book and radio serial: White Coolies. Sisters in Captivity builds on those diaries.

Brussels, April 1915. A beautiful young woman finds herself on the run from the enemy. Also being pursued is Ned Scott, a British army major who has been badly injured. The pair find themselves at a hospital run by the famous Edith Cavell, who agrees to treat the major while offering them both refuge and a false identity - she names the young girl Anna.

Set in 1981 Guatemala, a lyrical debut novel tells the powerful tale of a boy who must decide what it means to be a man during a time of war. Carlos knows that when the soldiers arrive with warnings about the Communist rebels, it is time to be a man and defend the village, keep everyone safe. But Mama tells him not yet - he’s still her quiet moonfaced boy. The soldiers laugh at the villagers, and before they move on, a neighbor is found dangling from a tree, a sign on his neck: Communist.

On November 8, 1943, U.S. Army nurse Agnes Jensen stepped out of a cold rain in Catania, Sicily, into a C-53 transport plane. But she and twelve other nurses never arrived in Bari, Italy, where they were to transport wounded soldiers to hospitals farther from the front lines. A violent storm and pursuit by German Messerschmitts led to a crash landing in a remote part of Albania, leaving the nurses, their team of medics, and the flight crew stranded in Nazi-occupied territory.

Corporal Scott Grey is drawn into a never-ending war in the past. He’s a military nurse, desperate to find peace with his fiancé, Naomi, a fellow army medic. But he is haunted by his experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan. He is still recovering in Aldershot from a serious head injury that affects him physically and emotionally, when one unsettled night a ghost nurse, a Grey Lady, from World War I, takes him back to the horrors of the trenches, and shares her story of loss. He’s not sure if she’s real or just a manifestation of the head injury. But when she pulls him back in time to her...