Axis Sally pops up continuously in my World War II readings, most recently in the last book I read, When Books Went to War, where her repeated appearances were enough to convince me to check out the Axis Sally biography at my local library. What I learned surprised me. Specifically, I was surprised to learn that while Mildred Gillars was officially Axis Sally, several women actually broadcast under the moniker. And Gillars was essentially made to take the fall for all of them: she was tried for treason and sentenced to a decade in prison for her broadcasts - in fact several women used the moniker, most notably Rita Zucca, who broadcast from Rome.
Gillars herself is both a fascinating and pathetic character. A failed showgirl, she appears to have got into the broadcasting business both to curry favor with her (already married) lover and to gain a level of fame that eluded her in Vaudeville and on Broadway. A college dropout, she earned her degree as an elderly woman, and spent much of her post-imprisonment life teaching in a convent. Reading the transcripts of her broadcasts from the distance of 70-plus years, and (as author Richard Lucas correctly points out), after the Vietnam protests and general coarsening of society, it is difficult to see how her deeds rise to the level of treason.
The book itself is fairly dry. Lucas wrote it, as he explains in the preface, upon discovering that no biography existed, and, while this will sound more uncharitable than I intend, it's not difficult to see why. Gillars is just not that terribly interesting. I was most interested in the hypocrisy and double dealing of the U.S. government that Lucas details throughout Gillars' trial, as well as the existence of Zucca. I mean no slight to Lucas, whose writing is clear and concise and research painstaking, but Axis Sally is a book that even the most devout history buffs can likely skip without missing too much.
Three stars for writing; one star for interest.
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