Debs at War: How Wartime Changed Their Lives, 1939-1945

by Anne de Courcy

Book Overview

An extraordinary account - from firsthand sources - of upper class women and the active part they took in the War Pre-war debutantes were members of the most protected, not to say isolated, stratum of... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0297829300
• ISBN13: 9780297829300
• Release Date: January 2005
• Publisher: Weidenfeld & N.
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.5" x 1.3" x 6.5"

Customer Reviews

Best if you lived during World War Two

I enjoyed reading this book because I was the same age as the debs during the war. We didn't have to do any difficult jobs in this country as they did in England. We did some knitting, went to USO clubs, sold war bonds and endured rationing of a few items like butter and gasoline. I was a little too young to work in the shipyards though my father was employed as an engineer doing defense work. It was amazing to read how the English women were forced to do war work, living in poor conditions but still partying at night in clubs that might be bombed - and taking it all in their stride. It was a very good history of that time. B.J. Haggland (Napa, California)

Fascinating on many levels

In this amazing book, Anne de Courcy interviewed 47 women who were pre-war debutantes at the beginning of World War 2 and who joined up to serve side by side with the Great Unwashed. Fresh from presentations at court in full regalia, they donned uniforms to work in hospitals, munitions factories, kitchens, cockpits, and in back of steering wheels. For all of them, it would be a life-transforming experience. They were at times reviled for their rank while being appalled at mixing with social inferiors; at times thrown into mild sexual situations (rifle practice with them was enjoyed by their males trainers, who got to lie down next to them); and at times thrown into lesbianism and extreme sexual situations. Other times were awkward (one deb was instructed to bandage a penis on her first day at work) or gruesome (one nearly fainted upon seeing a severed leg in a bucket), but it all was a far cry from champagne-sipping and curtseying for the King. Occasionally, escape was sought; one deb donned an overcoat over an evening dress and tried to sneak out to a night club. But another deb who made it to the Café de Paris witnessed a bomb crashing through the ceiling onto the band and dozens of dancers; when she saw men hovering over the dead and wounded, she assumed they were trying to help - until she realized they were stealing wallets. By the end of the war, the debs had had an educational experience few of us will ever see - a view from two diametrically-opposed rungs of the social ladder. But in the end, they all tended to revert back to type: they went home and married men of status. Plus ca change...? This is an excellent book on many different levels, not the least of which is that the debs' stories are all so fascinating. Well done, Anne de Courcy.

Great book about British History

"Debs at War" by Anne De Courcy is a really great book about how war came to England it change the whole generation of Women. The Debutantes were daughters of the upper crust of English socitey. Before the war, they spent their time at parties, weekand visits to thier friends country homes. Then the war came and they found themshelves being nurses,drivers, factory girls and many other things that thought were not possible. This is great book for fans of history or like myself a fan of war-time novel. "Debs at War" gives a real life account in war time Britian.