The First Lady of World War II
Eleanor Roosevelt's Daring Journey to the Frontlines and Back
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4.7 • 6 Ratings
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
The first book to tell the full story of Eleanor Roosevelt’s unprecedented and courageous trip to the Pacific Theater during World War II.
On August 27, 1943, news broke in the United States that First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt was on the other side of the world. A closely guarded secret, she had left San Francisco aboard a military transport plane headed for the South Pacific to support and report the troops on WW2’s front lines.
Americans had believed she was secluded at home.
As Allied forces battled the Japanese for control of the region, Eleanor was there on the frontlines, spending five weeks traveling, on a mission as First Lady of the United States to experience what our servicemen were experiencing... and report back home.
“The most remarkable journey any president’s wife has ever made."
—Washington Times-Herald, September 28, 1943
“Mrs. Roosevelt’s sudden appearance in New Zealand well deserves the attention it is receiving. This is the farthest and most unexpected junket of a First Lady whose love of getting about is legendary.”
—Detroit Free Press, August 28, 1943
“By a happy chance for Australia, this famous lady’s taste for getting about, her habit of seeing for herself what is going on in the world, and, most of all, her deep concern for the welfare of the fighting men of her beloved country, have brought her on the longest journey of them all—across the wide, war-clouded Pacific.”
—Sydney Morning Herald, September 4, 1943
“No other U.S. mother had seen so much of the panorama of the war, had been closer to the sweat and boredom, the suffering.”
—Time, October 4, 1943
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this amiable history, freelance writer Schmidt (Novel Destinations) documents Eleanor Roosevelt's 1943 mission to visit Allied troops in the Pacific theater of WWII. Concerned that after two years of war U.S. civilians were becoming "dangerously complacent," Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt believed that a trip to the South Pacific, Australia, and New Zealand would help "revive the strong sense of national unity that existed in the dark, shocking days after Pearl Harbor." Schmidt takes readers through Eleanor's exhausting five-week itinerary visiting hospital wards, mess halls, Red Cross facilities, and factories staffed by women workers. Talking with "tongue-tied" soldiers eager for news from the home front, Eleanor soon won over senior military officers who had been averse to the "distraction" of a visit from the first lady; after witnessing "the meticulous way she toured a hospital," Adm. William Halsey did an "about-face" and consented to Eleanor's request to visit Guadalcanal, despite rumors that Japanese troops were "hiding out on the far side of the island." Though the announcement of Eleanor's trip "generated both support and scorn, much of it along political lines," American newspapers covered the tour in detail, and Schmidt suggests that it helped galvanize support for the GI Bill of Rights and other programs to assist returning servicemen. Though somewhat baggy, this sepia-tinged portrait captures the appeal of a pathbreaking first lady.
