The First Lady of World War II: Eleanor Roosevelt's Daring Journey to the Frontlines and Back

On August 27, 1943, news broke in the United States that First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt was on the other side of the world. A closely guarded secret, she had left San Francisco aboard a military transport plane headed for the South Pacific to support and report the troops on WW2's front lines. 

Americans had believed she was secluded at home.

As Allied forces battled the Japanese for control of the region, Eleanor was there on the frontlines, spending five weeks traveling, on a mission as First Lady of the United States to experience what our servicemen were experiencing... and report back home.

"The most remarkable journey any president's wife has ever made."

—Washington Times-Herald, September 28, 1943

"Mrs. Roosevelt's sudden appearance in New Zealand well deserves the attention it is receiving. This is the farthest and most unexpected junket of a First Lady whose love of getting about is legendary."

—Detroit Free Press, August 28, 1943

"By a happy chance for Australia, this famous lady's taste for getting about, her habit of seeing for herself what is going on in the world, and, most of all, her deep concern for the welfare of the fighting men of her beloved country, have brought her on the longest journey of them all—across the wide, war-clouded Pacific."

—Sydney Morning Herald, September 4, 1943

"No other U.S. mother had seen so much of the panorama of the war, had been closer to the sweat and boredom, the suffering."

—Time, October 4, 1943