Lt. Cmdr. Laura M. Cobb (1892–1981): Chief navy nurse who oversaw medical care in WWII civilian concentration camps

Lt. Commander Laura M. Cobb was a chief nurse in the U.S. Navy during WWII who was imprisoned by Japan for more than three years in the Occupied Philippines. Under her direction, eleven other navy nurse POWs maintained rank and provided medical care to thousands of civilian inmates. Early in the war, Cobb courageously mislabeled quinine as baking soda in order to stop enemy medical corps from stealing the supply. She is credited with saving inmates from malaria. In 1943, she oversaw the creation of an infirmary at the Los Baños concentration camp where her nurses relied on scavenged supplies and local resources to provide medical care to more than 2,400 men, women and children. In U.S. military medical history, she is one of seventy-eight nurse POWs; and the only chief nurse in navy medical history to continue her duties while in enemy captivity. She received the Bronze Star with a gold star device and her citation honored her “dauntless determination, zealous efforts and unselfish devotion to duty in the face of unprecedented hardship.”

Of Stars, Soldiers, Mothers, and Mourning

Symbols like the service flag furthered community morale in the United States during World War I and evolved to engender memorial organizations like Gold Star Mothers. Music supported both, with three components of the industry—Tin Pan Alley, Kitchen Table publishing, and Song Sharks—differing in key respects: the participation of women composers and lyricists, the focus on mothers and loss, and the mix of ballads, waltz songs, and marches. As the war evolved, so did the responses, with the closing months and aftermath focusing increasingly on soldiers’ fatalities and the expression of grief and mourning. Postwar changes in style and dissemination marked the end of such collective expressions.

Over Here, Over There

Music in World War I played an important role in cementing the transatlantic alliance among Anglophone and Francophone allies. Chapters 1–5 consider responses to the war by five individuals from three countries: Frank Bridge, Charles Ives, Claude Debussy, John Philip Sousa, and Irving Berlin. Chapters 6–10 gradually expand the focus to ever larger groups of people: women theatre organists in the United States, the Longleat community in England, the greater citizenry of Canada, the service flag and Gold Star mother movements throughout the United States, and the global population devastated by the influenza epidemic. A “prelude,” “interlude,” and “postlude,” which provide context and supplemental material, are co-authored by the three editors, who speak as representatives of England, Canada, and the United States. The whole demonstrates not only the importance of musical exchanges and influences in shaping transatlantic support for the war effort but also the range of contributions made—from unknown amateurs to major composers, from local communities to international populations, and from regions that span a third of the globe.

Women and World War in Comparative Perspective

This chapter compares women’s experiences in World War I and World War II, emphasizing the ways that wartime mobilization shaped the citizenship claims, cultural representations, labor experiences, military contributions, and sexual expression of diverse groups of women. It focuses on how women applied their gendered, racialized, and classed bodies to wartime experiences that often put them at odds with propaganda images of femininity. The wartime context inspired the actions of women like gold star mothers who represented sacrifice, activists who fought for women suffrage, and African Americans who protested segregation. Some women embodied Rosie the Riveter by working in war industries, many cultivated victory gardens, and others served in the Women’s Army Corps. Young women found themselves caught in government projects to curtail venereal disease while seeking sexual autonomy.