Helmets and Lipstick

This volume is the first-hand account of Second Lieutenant Ruth Haskell, chronicling her time spent as a combat nurse with U.S. troops in North Africa during Operation Torch. From deployment to the journey to North Africa via Scotland and London, Lt. Haskell tells her story with a dry wit and humor, perfectly portraying the camaraderie between the nurses and the Allied soldiers fighting in North Africa at the time. At the time of its publication at the height of war, this book also served as a call-to-action for the nurses in the U.S. who had not yet joined the war effort. It is a classic account of combat nursing in World War Two, an important addition to the literature of the war in North Africa and of the history of non-combatants in the Second World War.