Description

Shirley Rose Gray's memoir and diary chronicle her World War II experiences with a USO show in the Pacific Theater during the summer of 1945. Part of comedic film actor Eddie Bracken's troupe of entertainers, the twenty-two-year-old native of Los Angeles performed on bitterly contested islands such as Guam, Peleliu, Tinian, and Saipan, as well as aboard the aircraft carrier USS Ticonderoga and other naval vessels. Her narrative recounts traveling on crowded planes, performing in wet clothes amid stifling heat, and dealing with homesickness and physical exhaustion. In addition to encountering utterly foreign people and landscapes, Gray witnessed the human and material destruction of ferocious battles. She and the other members of Bracken's show developed a sense of camaraderie, different but somewhat akin to that among veterans.

Gray's time on the islands included memorable moments apart from her performances. She spent many hours in hospitals talking to wounded men and often served food to grateful enlisted personnel. On Peleliu, she squeezed into a cave, once used by Japanese forces as a hospital, that contained decomposing corpses of slain soldiers. She spent an hour flying in a Navy dive bomber and, encouraged by Marines, briefly steered an amphibious tank. She met many well-known figures, including Admiral Richard E. Byrd, the famous polar explorer, who gave her the stars off his uniform's collar. A bomber crew painted her picture on the nose of their aircraft and named it the "Squirrelly Shirley."

Gray's highly personal memoir, episodic in nature, is descriptive rather than contemplative. No passages explain why the U.S. military endeavor merited praise; instead, Gray takes for granted that the uniformed men who attended Bracken's show fought for a just cause. Her straightforward prose leaves no doubt that she believed the troupe contributed to the war effort, and that she derived satisfaction from her efforts on stage and in other interactions with U.S. servicemen as the war entered its final phase.