The Women of World War II:
A Bibliography

A list of bibliographic resources about the women’s war effort during World War II and other military conflicts. Compiled for The Albert H. Small Normandy Institute, Summer 2021. – MT Hallock Morris

Diaries, Letters, & Oral Histories

Anonymous. (1953). A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in the Conquered City. Translated by P. Boehm. [Kindle Android version: 2017 reissue]. Picador. [Primary: Diary]

Alexievich, S. (2017). The Unwomanly Face of War [Kindle Android version]. Random House. [Primary: Collected Oral Histories]

Fessler, D. B. (1997). No Time for Fear: Voices of American Military Nurses in World War II. [Kindle Android version]. Michigan State University Press. [Primary: Oral History Collection – Nurses]

Harris, C. (2011). Blitz Diary: Life Under Fire in World War II [Kindle Android version]. The History Press. [Primary: Collect Excerpts from Diaries and Memoirs]

Last, Nella. (2012). The Diaries of Nella Last: Writing in War and Peace. Malcolmson, P., & Malcolmson, R., Editors. [Kindle Android version]. Profile Books. [Primary: Diaries]

Madden, C. (2017). The Blitz: 20 Survivors’ Stories from WW2 London [Kindle Android version]. Trevor Square. [Primary: Oral Histories]

Ranfurly, H. (2014). To War with Whitaker: Wartime Diaries of the Countess of Ranfurly, 1939-45. [Kindle Android version]. Bello. [Primary Source: Diary]

Schaffer, M. W., Schaffer, C., & Mathers, J. G. (2010). Mollie’s War: The Letters of a World War II WAC in Europe. [Kindle Android version: 2021 reissue]. McFarland and Company, Inc. [Primary: Letters]

Smith, M. (2012). These Wonderful Rumours! A Young Schoolteacher’s Wartime Diaries 1939-1945. [Kindle Android version]. Virago. [Primary: Diaries]

Strange, J. (2013). DESPATCHES From the Home Front: The War Diaries of JOAN STRANGE 1939-1945. Edited by C. McCooey. [Kindle Android version]. PublishNation. [Primary: Diary]

Memoirs and Autobiographies

Baring, S. (2020). The Road to Station X: From Debutante Ball to Fighter-Plane Factory to Bletchley Park, a Memoir of One Woman’s Journey Through World War Two (Memoirs from World War Two) [Kindle Android version]. Sapere Books. [Primary: Memoir]

Carl, A. (1999). A Wasp Among Eagles [Kindle Android version: 2013 reissue]. Smithsonian Books. [Primary: Memoir]

Cornioley, P. W. (2013). Code Name Pauline: Memoirs of a World War II Special Agent (Women of Action). Atwood, K.J. (ed). [Kindle Android version]. Chicago Review Press. [Primary: Memoir]

Earley, C. A. (2021). One Woman’s Army: A Black Officer Remembers the WAC (Texas A & M University Military History Series, #12) [Kindle Android version]. Texas A&M University Press. [Primary: Autobiography]

Ellis, M., & Foreman, M. (2016). A Spitfire Girl: One of the World’s Greatest Female ATA Ferry Pilots Tells Her Story. [Kindle Android version]. Frontline Books. [Primary Source: Memoir]

Haskell, R. G. (2017). Helmets and Lipstick: An Army Nurse in World War Two [Kindle Android version]. Elara Publishing. [Primary: Memoir]

Kraus, D. (2020). A Delayed Life [Kindle Android version]. Macmillan. [Primary: Autobiography]

Mackintosh, D., and D. Thompson. (2020). Spitfire Girl [Kindle Android version]. White Hart Books [Primary: Memoir]

Reid, C.B. (1999). Slacks & Calluses: Our Summer in a Bomber Factory. C.M. Allen, Illustrator. Smithsonian Books.

Roosevelt, E. (1961). The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt [Kindle Android version: 2014 reissue]. Harper Perennial. [Primary: Autobiography]

Simon, M.J. (2015). Underground in Berlin: A Young Woman’s Extraordinary Tale of Survival in the Heart of Nazi Germany. [Kindle Android version]. Little, Brown. [Primary: Memoir]

Soames, M. (2012). A Daughter’s Tale: The Memoir of Winston Churchill’s Youngest Child. [Kindle Android version]. Random House [Primary Source: Memoir]

Spencer, L. R. (1945). Guerrilla Wife: One Woman’s Story of Survival After the Japanese Invasion of the Philippines in World War Two. [Kindle Android version: 2019 reissue]. Order Books. [Primary: Memoir]

Utinsky, M. (1948). Miss U: Angel of the Underground [Kindle Android version: 2017 reissue]. Durian Press. [Primary: Memoir]

van de Perre, S. (2021). My Name Is Selma: The Remarkable Memoir of a Jewish Resistance Fighter and Ravensbrück Survivor. [Kindle Android version]. Scribner. [Primary: Memoir]

Secondary Sources: World War II

Atwood, K. (2016). Women Heroes of World War II—the Pacific Theater: 15 Stories of Resistance, Rescue, Sabotage, and Survival (Women of Action) [Kindle Android version]. Chicago Review Press.

Atwood, K. J. (2011). Women Heroes of World War II: 26 Stories of Espionage, Sabotage, Resistance, and Rescue (Women of Action). 1^st edition. [Kindle Android version]. Chicago Review Press.

Barrett, D., & N. Calvi. (2015). The Girls Who Went to War: Heroism, Heartache and Happiness in the Wartime Women’s Forces. Harper Element.

Barrett, D., & N. Calvi. (2014). GI Brides: The Wartime Girls Who Crossed the Atlantic for Love. William Morrow.

Basu, S., & Foot, M. R. D. (2008). Spy Princess: The Life of Noor Inayat Khan [Kindle Android version]. Roli Books.

Beaven, S. (2020). We Will Rise: A True Story of Tragedy and Resurrection in the American Heartland [Kindle Android version]. Little A.

Braddon, R. (1956). Nancy Wake: World War Two’s Most Rebellious Spy [Kindle Android version: 2019 reissue]. Little A.

Brock, J., Dickey, J. W., Harker, R., & Lewis, C., (eds.) (2015). Beyond Rosie: A Documentary History of Women and World War II. [Kindle Android version]. University of Arkansas Press.

Buchan, U. (2013). A Green and Pleasant Land: How England’s Gardeners Fought the Second World War. [Kindle Android version]. Cornerstone Digital.

Byrne, P. (2016). Kick: The True Story of JFK’s Sister and the Heir to Chatsworth. [Kindle Android version]. Harper.

Caravantes, P. (2015). The Many Faces of Josephine Baker: Dancer, Singer, Activist, Spy (Women of Action) [Kindle Android version]. Chicago Review Press.

Chang, I. (1997). The Rape Of Nanking [Kindle Android version: 2012 reissue]. Basic Books.

Cobbs, E. (2017). The Hello Girls: America’s First Women Soldiers [Kindle Android version]. Harvard University Press.

Cohen, S. (2011). The Women’s Institute. Shire Publications.

Cook, B. W. (2016). Eleanor Roosevelt, Volume 3: The War Years and After, 1939-1962. [Kindle Android version]. Penguin.

de Courcy, A. (2012). Debs at War [Kindle Android version]. Orion.

Dickson, B. (2015). Bomb Girls: Trading Aprons for Ammo [Kindle Android version]. Dundurn.

Dunlop, T. (2015). The Bletchley Girls: War Secrecy, Love and Loss – The Women of Bletchley Park Tell Their Story. [Kindle Android version]. Hodder and Stoughton.

Eisner, P. (2004). The Freedom Line: The Brave Men and Women Who Rescued Allied Airmen from the Nazis During World War II. [Kindle Android version: 2013]. Perennial.

Escobedo, E. R. (2013). From Coveralls to Zoot Suits [Kindle Android version]. University of North Carolina Press.

Foreman, M.J. (2014). Bomber Girls. [Kindle Single]. Endeavour Press.

Green, B. (2012). Girls in Khaki: A History of the ATS in the Second World War. The History Press. [Kindle Android version]. The History Press.

Gueli, C. (2015). Lipstick Brigade: The Untold True Story of Washington’s World War II Government Girls [Kindle Android version]. Tahoga History Press.

Inglis, R. (2020). The Children’s War: Evacuation 1939-1945 [Kindle Android version]. Lume Books.

Katz, C. G. (2020). The Daughters of Yalta: The Churchills, Roosevelts, and Harrimans: A Story of Love and War [Kindle Android version]. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Kiernan, D. (2013). The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II. Touchstone.

Landdeck, K. S. (2020). The Women with Silver Wings [Kindle Android version]. Crown.

Langley, W. (2002). Flying Higher: The Women Airforce Service Pilots of World War II [Kindle Android version: 2009 reissue]. Linnet Books.

Larson, E. (2020). The Splendid and the Vile [Kindle Android version]. Crown.

Loftis, L. (2019). Code Name: Lise: The True Story of the Woman Who Became WWII’s Most Highly Decorated Spy [Kindle Android version]. Gallery Books.

Macadam, H. D. (2019). 999: The Extraordinary Young Women of the First Official Jewish Transport to Auschwitz [Kindle Android version]. Citadel Press.

Madison, J.H. (2007). Slinging Doughnuts for the Boys: An American Woman in World War II. Indiana University Press.

Mason, F. (2014). Night Witches: A History of the All-Female 588th Night Bomber Regiment [Kindle Android version]. HistoryCaps.

Merryman, M. (1998). Clipped Wings: The Rise and Fall of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPS) of World War II [Kindle Android version: 2020 reissue]. New York University Press.

Montgomery, B. (2016). Leper Spy: The Story of an Unlikely Hero of World War II [Kindle Android version]. Chicago Review Press.

Mundy, L. (2017). Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II.[Kindle Android version]. Hachette Books.

Norman, E.M. (1999, reissued 2011): We Band of Angels: The Untold Story of American Women Trapped on Bataan. Random House.

Olson, L. (2019). Madame Fourcade’s Secret War: The Daring Young Woman Who Led France’s Largest Spy Network Against Hitler. [Kindle Android version]. Random House.

Olson, L. (2010). Citizens of London [Kindle Android version]. Random House.

Pearson, P. O. (2019). Fly Girls: The Daring American Women Pilots Who Helped Win WWII [Kindle Android version]. Simon and Schuster. [Note: YA Nonfiction]

Purnell, S. (2019). A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II. [Kindle Android version]. Penguin Books.

Purnell, S. (2015). Clementine: The Life of Mrs. Winston Churchill [Kindle Android version]. Penguin.

Reeves, R. (2015). Infamy: The Shocking Story of the Japanese American Internment in World War II. [Kindle Android version]. Henry Holt and Co.

Robinson, J. (2011). A Force to be Reckoned With: A History of the Women’s Institute. Virago.

Rose, S. (2019). D-Day Girls: The Spies Who Armed the Resistance, Sabotaged the Nazis, and Helped Win World War II. [Kindle Android version]. Crown.

Sagmiller, G. (2012). We Can Do It! A Rosie the Riveter Story. A Biography of my Mom. One woman’s story of her generation during World War II and working as a real-life “Rosie the Riveter” [Kindle Android version]. Freedom of Speech Publishing.

Shawcross, W. (2009). The Queen Mother [Kindle Android version]. Vintage Books.

Smith, D. (2013). The Spade as Mighty as the Sword: The Story of World War Two’s ‘Dig for Victory’ Campaign [Kindle Android version]. Aurum.

Sorel, N. C. (1999). The Women Who Wrote the War: The Riveting Saga of World War II’s Daredevil Women and Correspondents [Kindle Android version: 2011 reissue]. Arcade Publishing.

Summers, J. (2015). Fashion on the Ration: Style in the Second World War. [Kindle Android version]. Profile Books.

Summers, J. (2013). Jambusters: The Story of the Women’s Institute in the Second World War. Simon and Schuster.

Terkel, S. (2011). “The Good War”: An Oral History of World War II [Kindle Android version]. The New Press.

Thomas, G., & Lewis, G. (2017). Shadow Warriors of World War II: The Daring Women of the OSS and SOE [Kindle Android version]. Chicago Review Press.

Tomblin, B. B. (2001). G.I. Nightingales: The Army Nurse Corps in World War II. [Kindle Android version]. University of Kentucky Press.

Ure, J. W., & Ure, J. W. (2017). Seized by the Sun: The Life and Disappearance of World War II Pilot Gertrude Tompkins (Women of Action) [Kindle Android version]. Chicago Review Press.

Vromen, S. (2008). Hidden Children of the Holocaust: Belgian Nuns and their Daring Rescue of Young Jews from the Nazis. [Kindle Android version]. Oxford University Press.

Wake-Walker, E. (2020). A House For Spies: SIS Operations into Occupied France from a Sussex Farmhouse [Kindle Android version]. Sapere Books.

Wein, E. (2019). A Thousand Sisters [Kindle Android version]. Balzer + Bray.

Welch, B. (2008). American Nightingale: The Story of Frances Slanger, Forgotten Heroine of Normandy [Kindle Android version]. Atria Books.

Wilson, J.S., & C. Serber, ed. (2008). Standing By and Making Do: Women of Wartime Los Angeles. Los Alamos Historical Society. [Second Edition; First Ed. Published 1988]

Yellin, E. (2004). Our Mothers’ War: American Women at Home and at the Front During World War II [Kindle Android version: 2010 reissue]. Free Press.

Secondary Sources: Other Wars

Abbott, K. (2014). Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy: Four Women Undercover in the Civil War [Kindle Android version]. Harper.

Cooke, J. (2021). Come Fly the World: The Jet-Age Story of the Women of Pan Am [Kindle Android version]. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt [See quote on page 9]

Dumenil, L. (2017). The Second Line of Defense: American Women in World War I. University of North Carolina Press.

Hayden-Smith, R. (2014). Sowing the Seeds of Victory: American Gardening Programs of World War I. [Kindle Android version]. McFarland and Company.

Pack, C. L. (1919). War Garden Victorious: History of the War Garden (Victory Garden) During WW I [Kindle Android version: 2013 reissue]. J.P. Lippincott.

Other Sources

Cooke, A. (2006). The American Home Front, 1941–1942 [Kindle Android version]. Grove Press. [Primary: By a Journalist]

Davidson, L. (2019). Vintage Recipes: Timeless and Memorable Old-Fashioned Recipes from Our Grandmothers.(Lost Recipes Vintage Cookbooks)[Kindle Android version]. Retrieved from Amazon.com

Ensler, E. (2001). Say It: For the “Comfort Women.” pp. 123 – 130 in The Vagina Monologues: 20th Anniversary Edition. Ballantine Books.

Gellhorn, M. (2014). The Face of War [Kindle Android version]. Atlantic Monthly Press. Original copyrights: 1959, 1967, 1986. [Primary: Essays and Articles]

Ginn, P., Goodman, R., & Langlands, A. (2012). Wartime Farm [Kindle Android version]. Octopus Books [See also the TV series on BBC]

Holden, H. M. (2012). Rosie the Riveter [Kindle Android version]. Black Hawk Publishing Co. [Collected Photographs]

Larson, K. C. (2016). Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter [Kindle Android version]. Mariner Books.

Moore, K. (2017). The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women [Kindle Android version]. Sourcebooks.

Moorehead, C. (2007). Gellhorn: A Twentieth-Century Life. [Kindle Android version]. Henry Holt and Co.

Roosevelt, E. (1940). The Moral Basis of Democracy [Kindle Android version: 2016 reissue]. Open Road Integrated Media. [Primary]

Roosevelt, E. (2001). My Day: The Best of Eleanor Roosevelt’s Acclaimed Newspaper Columns, 1936-1962. Edited by D. Emblidge. Da Capo Press. [Primary: Newspaper Columns]

Schipske, G. (2008). Rosie the Riveter in Long Beach (Images of America) [Kindle Android version]. Arcadia Publishing. [Photographs]

Shewell-Cooper, W.E. (2011 reissue). Land Girl: A Manual for Volunteers in the Women’s Land Army. Amberley. [Original Edition: 1941] [Primary Source]

United States Department of Agriculture. (1943). Victory Garden Guide: 1943 Victory Garden Guide – Presented by Prepper Living [Kindle Android version: 2020 reissue by Prepper Living]. Prepper Living. [Primary: Government Document]

Self-Published*

Denton, H. (2012). World War II WAC [Kindle Android version]. Deeds Publishing. [Primary: Memoir]

Drago, A., & Wellman, D. (2020). Surviving Hiroshima: A Young Woman’s Story [Kindle Android version]. WriteLife Publishing. [Biography by Kaleria Palchikoff’s son]

Miller, W. M. (2016). To Live and Die a WASP: 38 Women Pilots Who Died in WWII [Kindle Android version]. Self-Published.

Robbins Brock, L. (2018). Victory on the Home Front: A World War II Story: While Her Husband Fought, She Built Planes ~ She was a Rosie the Riveter [Kindle Android version]. Self-Published.

Smith, M. K. (2018). The Postwoman [Kindle Android version]. CreateSpace Independent Publishing [re: self-published]

Kramer, R. (2010). Flames in the Field [Kindle Android version]. CreateSpace Independent Publishing. [re: self-published]

Minton, L.E. (2018). Remembering WWII Women. Kindle Direct Publishing. [Primary: Oral Histories]

Turner, D. J. (2020). What Did You Do In The War, Sister?: Catholic Sisters in the WWII Nazi Resistance [Kindle Android version]. [re: self-published]

* As a research methods professor, I feel obligated to warn you against using these books in a formal paper for a class. Your professor may not count these as reputable sources.

On Grit and Perseverance

Duckworth, A. (2016). Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance. [Kindle Android version]. Scribner.

Fessler, L. (2018, March 26). “You’re no genius:” Her Father’s Shutdowns Made Angela Duckworth a World Expert on Grit.” Quartz at Work. https://qz.com/work/1233940/angela-duckworth-explains-grit-is-the-key-to-success-and-self-confidence/ [Last accessed July 18, 2021].

On Gender

Gottlieb, I. (2019). Seeing Gender: An Illustrated Guide to Identity and Expression. [Illustrated; Kindle Android version]. Chronicle Books LLC.

“Glass ceiling.” (2021). Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary. Cambridge University Press. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/glass-ceiling [Last accessed July 18, 2021].

Websites & Web Articles

“Admiral Linda Fagan Becomes USGC’s First Female Four-Star Admiral. (2021, June 21). The Maritime Executive. https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/adm-linda-fagan-becomes-u-s-coast-guard-s-first-four-star-admiral?fbclid=IwAR1wdJON-2_U0oUQwUFJUe5a0m2dCGt3NzdBBmYnHnjfPvr3YgSD4Ux05V0 [Last accessed July 18, 2021].

Alexander, K.L. (2019). Mary Edwards Walker. National Women’s History Museum. https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/mary-edwards-walker [Last accessed July 18, 2021]

Bell, B. (2016). Women’s Voluntary Service: “The Army Hitler Forgot.” BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-36226957 [Last accessed July 18, 2021].

“The History of Wartime Nurses.” (nd). Duquesne University School of Nursing. https://onlinenursing.duq.edu/history-wartime-nurses/ [Last accessed July 18, 2021}

Imperial War Museums. (2021). The Vital Role of Women in the Second World War. https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/the-vital-role-of-women-in-the-second-world-war

Imperial War Museums. (2021). What Did the Women’s Institute Do During the Second World War? https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/what-did-the-womens-institute-do-during-the-second-world-war

Imperial War Museums. (2021). What Was the Women’s Land Army? https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/what-was-the-womens-land-army

Jenish, D’Arcy (2016, February 20). The Bomb Girls of Ajax. Legion: Canada’s Military History Magazine.https://legionmagazine.com/en/2016/02/the-bomb-girls-of-ajax/

Mass Observation. (2015). History of Mass Observation. http://www.massobs.org.uk/about/history-of-mo [Last accessed July 18, 2021].The National WWII Museum. (nd). American Women in World War II: On the Home Front and Beyond. https://www.nationalww2museum.org/students-teachers/student-resources/research-starters/women-wwii

Archives of Interest**

Australian War Memorial. Collection Guides for Published and Digitised Collections. https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/understanding-the-memorials-collection/collection-guides

Imperial War Museums (United Kingdom). Ministry of Information Second World War Official Collection. https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/search?query=&filters%5BcollectionString%5D%5BMINISTRY%20OF%20INFORMATION%20SECOND%20WORLD%20WAR%20OFFICIAL%20COLLECTION%5D=on

Library of Congress. Suffering Under a Great Injustice: Ansel Adams’s Photographs of Japanese-American Internment at Manzanar. https://www.loc.gov/search/?fa=partof:suffering+under+a+great+injustice%22:+ansel+adams%27s+photographs+of+japanese-american+internment+at+manzanar

Mass Observation (United Kingdom). http://www.massobs.org.uk/the-archive/collections

The National Archives (United Kingdom). Second World War Collection. https://images.nationalarchives.gov.uk/assetbank-nationalarchives/action/browseItems?categoryId=33&categoryTypeId=1

Royal Voluntary Service Heritage Online. (United Kingdom). http://catalogue.royalvoluntaryservice.org.uk/calmview/default.aspx

Wagner College Holocaust Center. Survivor Collections. https://wagner.edu/holocaust-center/survivor-collections/

** This is not a complete collection of archival material. You should check your local library and well as the archives located in local historical associations and academic libraries near you.