Biography of Elizabeth Richardson, an American Red Cross worker who served on U.S. Army bases in England and France from 1944 to 1945, before dying in an plane crash shortly after the end of the war in Europe. Madison includes a chapter on her life before signing up with the Red Cross, then most of the rest of the book is Richardson's letters, published writing and diary entries, with context added around each original document. I'm not sure if the University Press put out some kind of mandate for how much context Madison had to include, as some of his introductions to the letters were just summaries of what the letter said, and seemed redundant. However, other times he added quite a bit about what was happening on any given base, Red Cross policy, and where we were in the greater war. I found a lot of these useful, especially in regards to African American troops, but I'd also have been pretty happy to just read Richardson's letters straight up.

She was an engaging correspondent, with alternately poignant and hilarious descriptions of people and places around her, and special disdain reserved for Red Cross/Army logistics, and making the doughnuts she and he co-workers served to tens of thousands of servicemen. She also drew and painted, and the book includes some of her art, as well as quite a few photographs. I especially liked the descriptions of the port of Le Havre in 1945, with its influx of new troops bound for the front, and outpouring of liberated PoWs.