Forty-Two Keys for Victory

Rationing, shortages, and the clever ways people coped with them are recurring themes in books about the American home front in World War II, fiction and non-fiction alike. (Even the new roles of women in the workplace were the result of a critical shortage of men.) Food and gas rationing, rubber and metal shortages and…

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Eddie Rickenbacker in WWII: Not a Flying Ace, Still a Hero

First, a caveat: I got an email from a regular reader in response to my first post on Eddie Rickenbacker in which she said she had vivid memories of reading the story I’m about to tell you in the sixth grade.  I’m pretty sure I first read this story a couple of weeks ago.(1) But…

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Introducing Eddie Rickenbacker, America’s Ace of Aces

Recently My Own True Love and I were discussing aviation history over dinner, as happens more often than you might think. My recent blog post on the Hat in the Ring Squadron had led us to talking about Eddie Rickenbacker. As we pooled what we knew, we realized that there was more to his story…

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