Gillars, a failed Broadway actress, learned fast and used her sexy, soothing voice to taunt troops about the supposed infidelities of their wives and girlfriends back home, as well as describing the horrible deaths they were about to meet on the battlefield. Backed by German military intelligence, “Axis Sally” was able to convey personal greetings to individual US units that naturally caused anxiety among the troops who felt the Germans knew exactly who and where they were.
At the end of the war Gillars was captured by the Americans after a failed attempt to pose as a refugee. She was returned to the U.S. to stand trial for the crime of treason. Her 1949 trial captured the attention of a nation whose memory of the horrors of war was still fresh. After a three-month trial, she was found guilty and sentenced to 10–30 years. Paroled in 1961 after serving just 12 years, she quietly spent the remainder of her life as a music instructor in a Catholic Girl’s school in Columbus, Ohio until her death in 1988.
Richard Lucas leaves no stone unturned in telling this rich and compelling story of Axis Sally—a woman who attempted to rebuild her life in the country she betrayed, after she had become one of the most notorious Americans of the 20th century!