The Hello Girls of Chaumont
A Novel of the First Women Soldiers

About this book:

Sixteen-year-old Marie Durand has spent years mastering the crackle and hum of the New England switchboard, her fingers flying across brass plugs and silk cords faster than any operator in the exchange. But when General Pershing puts out a desperate call for bilingual women to run the tangled telephone lines of the American Expeditionary Forces in France, Marie doesn't hesitate—she lies about her age, forges her father's consent, and boards a troop transport through U-boat-infested waters. She arrives at Chaumont not as a girl, but as a soldier of the Signal Corps: the first women ever to wear the Army uniform, sworn to military discipline yet denied the rank and veterans' benefits given to men.

At General Headquarters, the work is relentless. Shellfire severs trunk lines minutes after they're repaired. Gas attacks force operators to don masks without leaving their boards. French officers scream for artillery coordinates in rapid Parisian while doughboys bark orders in Midwestern slang, and Marie must translate both perfectly—because a single misrouted call means a barrage falls on friendly trenches, or a battalion walks into an ambush unseen. As the Meuse-Argonne offensive erupts and the switchboard becomes the nervous system of the largest American battle in history, Marie discovers that the front line isn't always marked by barbed wire. Sometimes it's the thin copper thread between life and death, held taut by a teenager's steady hands.

Based on the true, long-overlooked story of the "Hello Girls"—the 223 women who connected over 26 million calls and helped win the war, only to be erased from history when they came home—*The Hello Girls of Chaumont* is a pulse-pounding novel of courage, deception, and the quiet revolution that began at the end of a plug cord. For readers who loved *The Alice Network* and *Code Name Hélène*, this is the unforgettable story of the women who proved that the most vital weapon on the battlefield wasn't a rifle—it was a voice on the line.