When sheltered, Midwestern woman Blanche Barnes suffers a sudden, heartbreaking loss, she searches for and finds something bigger than herself. She finds new meaning. She finds purpose in her shattered life.

Forged in Fire tells Blanche’s true story of transformation, accomplishing what few women of her time ever did—attending college, learning to drive a truck and fly a plane, traveling abroad and, most daringly, serving in war zones as part of the American Red Cross’ innovative World War II clubmobile program.

Author Robert L. Gangwere expertly weaves his mother’s personal story with that of the clubmobile program, which lifted the morale of America’s fighting men. Blanche and a cadre of well-educated, independent, and resolute American women serve up coffee, doughnuts, music, and hope for a brighter future to hundreds of thousands of war-weary, exhausted American GIs.

After completing her education at Northwestern University, Blanche is selected by the Red Cross for overseas service in June 1944. Subsequently, she spends nearly seven months serving multiple 8th Air Force air bases outside of Kettering, England, including the famous 303rd Bomb Group, or “Hell’s Angels.”

In February 1945, she crosses over the English Channel and works at the cigarette camps outside of Le Havre, France. Finally, she finds herself in occupied Germany just before the end of the European war and, during the occupation, meets and falls in love with the man she would be married to for over 56 years.

Along the way, Blanche crosses paths with such notables as journalist Ernie Pyle, General George S. Patton, Jr., General Omar N. Bradley, actor and singer Marlene Dietrich, and Polish pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman; and she witnesses firsthand the impact and horror of global war.

Blanche lives through buzz bomb attacks in London, comes face to face with the unpublicized racial policies of the Red Cross, escapes a sexual assault, nearly loses her life at the hands of a trigger-happy sentry, drives 2 1/2 ton trucks and a Sherman tank, flies a B-17 Flying Fortress across the English Channel, dines with German spies, swims with the Glenn Miller Band, and cruises the Danube River on Hitler’s yacht.

And she deals with the social complexities of working and living with women from across America, all of them more worldly and outgoing than she is.