For people living in the Philippine Islands, the usual celebratory holiday week that stretched from Christmas into the New Year was fraught with danger and uncertainty. The Japanese began bombing the Philippines on December 8, 1941, after they had concluded their attack on Pearl Harbor. On December 22, they launched an invasion at Lingayen Gulf on the main Philippine island of Luzon. American and Filipino forces, no match at this point for the Japanese, retreated to the presumed safety of the Bataan peninsula or the small island fortress of Corregidor.

The day after Christmas, General Douglas MacArthur declared Manila an open city, hoping to spare its destruction. The Japanese continued their bombing campaign as their troops headed for the capital city.

During those dangerous days and nights, Peggy Utinsky, an American woman living in the Philippines since the 1920s, worked as a nurse in one of the Manila hospitals and volunteered at a local soldiers’ canteen. For two precious days, her husband Jack managed to get away from his duties on Bataan to visit her. But Peggy’s medical skills were sorely needed, and she couldn’t take any additional time off to spend with him. Before she knew it, Jack was gone.

Gladys Savary, owner of the popular Manila eatery, the Restaurant de Paris, kept her business open during that hectic time. It proved a comforting diversion from the personal pain of biding goodbye to her nephew, Edgar Gable, who headed off to fight on Bataan. Gladys began New Year’s Day 1942 with a morning eggnog. Enemy forces, moving rapidly, were twenty miles from the city.

I’ve written books about “ordinary” women caught up in the extraordinary times of World War II, and I’m fascinated by how women’s wartime contributions have been remembered.

Rosie the Riveter is one of the most enduring images of World War II. In this blog post for Oxford University Press, I talk about the reality behind this illustration.

Complicating Rosie the Riveter

Anyone interested in reading more deeply on this topic should take a look at the sources I consulted:

Hegarty, Marilyn. Victory Girls, Khaki-Wackies, and Patriotutes: The Regulation of Female Sexuality during World War II. New York: New York University Press, 2008.

Honey, Maureen. Creating Rosie the Riveter: Class, Gender, and Propaganda During World War II. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1984.

Kimble, James J. and Lester C. Olson, “Visual Rhetoric Representing Rosie the Riveter: Myth and Misconception in J. Howard Miller’s ‘We Can Do It!’ Poster,” Rhetoric & Public Affairs 9:4 (Winter 2006): 533-569.

Knaff, Donna B. Beyond Rosie the Riveter: Women of World War II in American Popular Graphic Art. Lawrence: The University Press of Kansas, 2012.

McEuen, Melissa. Making War, Making Women: Femininity and Duty on the American Home Front 1941-1945. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2011.

Meyer, Leisa D. Creating G.I. Jane: Sexuality and Power in the Women’s Army Corps During World War II. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997.

Sharp, Gwen and Lisa Wade, “Secrets of a Feminist Icon,” Contexts.10:2 (2011): 82-83. Accessed online https://lisawadedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/sharp-wade-2011-secrets-of-a-feminist-icon.pdf

I was delighted by an invitation to apply The Page 99 Test to Angels of the Underground. The blog, Campaign for the American Reader, contains a lot of interesting posts about a variety of books, so after you read my piece, stay there awhile and look around. You’ll find lots to add to your TBR list.

http://page99test.blogspot.com/

One week ago today was the official publication date of

After years of researching, writing, and revising, it all finally came together. It’s nice to see the book in its final form, and I’m looking forward to talking to people about it. I’ve already recorded a podcast and tomorrow I’ll be interviewed for a radio program. (Details about that later.) There are a few other things coming up that I’ll reveal as they happen.

In the meantime, I hope everyone is enjoying their holiday season. And remember, angels go well with Christmas trees.

Christmas is five days away. I can’t help thinking about December 1941 in the Philippines. The Japanese not only bombed the island of Luzon that month, they also started an invasion. As Filipinos and Americans living in and around Manila tried to prepare to celebrate the holiday, they had to face the fact that an enemy occupation was imminent. Read more about it in Angels of the Underground.