A Woman In A Man's War

About the Book

Very little has been written about World War II from the perspective of a woman, largely because of the limited number who saw that war upclose. Women were only admitted into the regular Armed Services some thirty years later. The author of this book, B. J. Olewiler, was one of that limited number who was with the Red Cross Clubmobile Units in the European Theater of Operations. The Clubmobile girls lived and ate with the Army, and trucked coffee and donuts to the troops wherever they could be reached when not in actual combat.

B. J. has told a personal and intimate story of those years; first in the United Kingdom waiting for the invasion, and then after D Day following Patton´s Third Army across the continent. With her, you can experience what it was like to be a normally insecure, but determined, young woman who yearns to be where the action is, and as a result, is thrown into a world completely foreign to the one young ladies were prepared for. You can share her reactions to the unexpected events encountered, sometimes strangely laughable, and sometimes sobering and thought-provoking.

From her descriptions emerge many unforgettable scenes as she struggles, along with her colleagues, to do her best to bring a "taste of home" to the troops: first in Northern Ireland as she becomes fiercely loyal to "her part" of the Fifth Division; then welcoming incoming troops in Scotland, and finally behind the lines in France and Germany. These events, interwoven with reflections from today´s viewpoint as seen by the same individual over fifty years later, make for an absorbing story.

About the Author

B.J. Olewiler grew up in the Northwest during the Great Depression. She graduated from the University of Washington in 1939, and joined the American Red Cross in 1943 during the World War II. Assigned to a clubmobile unit in the European Theater of Operations, she served a two-year tour of duty. On her return home, after a whirlwind courtship, she married Norman Olewiler, who became a lawyer. When he died in 1999, they had been happily married for fifty-three years. When their only daughter was old enough to go to school, B.J. commuted to the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and earned her doctorate in Philosophy in 1971. She taught philosophy as an adjunct professor at York College of Pennsylvania for sixteen years.