Featuring Author Terri Wangard

Featured Book: Soar Like Eagles

Author: Terri Wangard

Publisher: Celebrate Lit Publishing Group

Released:  December 2016

Genre: Historical / Historical Romance

PLEASE WELCOME AUTHOR TERRI WANGARD AS SHE SHARES INFORMATION ABOUT THE WRITING OF THIS BOOK SET IN WWII. TAKE IT AWAY, TERRI . . .

For the third book of my World War II series, I needed something to involve my main character with. At first I considered the train canteens, where volunteers laden with food met troop trains crisscrossing the country. That wouldn’t work though, because my navigator was heading overseas and I didn’t want a correspondence relationship. Then I discovered the Red Cross clubmobiles.

The American Red Cross operated canteens on the home front and clubs and clubmobiles overseas during World War II to provide soldiers and sailors with a cup of coffee, a doughnut, and a bit of friendly conversation that gave the men a familiar connection with home.

The Red Cross operated canteens in World War I when thousands of service personnel were traveling by train between their homes and camps and then to the ships that took them overseas. With the United States’ sudden entrance into World War II in 1941, the American Red Cross once again cared for troops on the move. Stateside, the Red Cross operated canteens near military installations, at train stations, ports of embarkation, and at military airfields. Canteen volunteers worked tirelessly securing donated and purchased supplies, preparing food and drinks, setting up facilities, and serving the troops.

Around the world, the Red Cross staffed permanent service clubs, traveling clubmobiles, and other recreational facilities. Service clubs provided refreshments, accommodations, and comfort and recreational activities wherever American troops were located overseas. In major cities, they offered meals, recreational activities, overnight accommodations, and barbershops and laundries. Some also provided sightseeing opportunities, touring museums, castles and cathedrals, and attending local theaters and movie houses.

Smaller clubs provided food in outlying areas near American military camps. The Red Cross also operated rest homes, often in stately manor houses in rural, tranquil locations overseas, for service personnel needing respite from the pressures of war.

To serve military sites in isolated areas, the Red Cross used clubmobiles in Great Britain in 1942 and later, the continent. Staffed by three American Red Cross women and a local driver in England, they visited several sites in a day, bringing refreshments, entertainment, and a touch of home to the troops in a foreign land. They used converted half-ton trucks and single-deck London buses, which featured kitchen equipment for making and serving doughnuts and coffee. Some carried phonographs and loudspeakers to provide music for the troops, and the women often danced with the servicemen. On the continent, the women had to drive and service their trucks.

Many American servicemen had never traveled far from home. At Red Cross clubs and clubmobiles in far-flung places around the globe, they received a connection to home and civilian life through friendly American women and familiar food. The Red Cross served a basic purpose of raising morale.

 ♦ ♦ ♦

Carol Doucet of Soar Like Eagles was proud to be a Doughnut Girl. 

She wants to do her part for the war, but struggles to maintain her ideals.

He joins the air force, hoping to find peace.

            Carol becomes a Red Cross doughnut girl, serving GIs and boosting their morale. Believing wartime romances are doomed to disappointment, she attempts to avoid entanglements and transfers to France, away from Chet, the airman she’s falling for.

            Chet’s father always belittled him. Now a well-regarded navigator, he longs to prove him wrong. After he’s ditched in the North Sea, parachuted into France, and been called before a review, his focus changes to staying alive, and winning the Red Cross girl he keeps crossing paths with.

♦ ♦ ♦ 

Terri Wangard grew up in Green Bay, Wisconsin, during the Lombardi Glory Years. Her first Girl Scout badge was the Writer. These days she is writing historical fiction, and won the 2013 Writers on the Storm contest and 2013 First Impressions, as well as being a 2012 Genesis finalist. Holder of a bachelor’s degree in history and a master’s degree in library science, she lives in Wisconsin. Her research included going for a ride in a WWII B-17 Flying Fortress bomber. Classic Boating Magazine, a family business since 1984, keeps her busy as an associate editor.

Connect with Terri:
www.terriwangard.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/AuthorTerriWangard
Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/terriwangard/

Buy link:  http://amzn.to/2dMEDNJ

Soar Like Eagles won the ACFW (American Christian Fiction Writers) First Impressions contest as a historical, but could be considered a historical romance.