Claire Barrett is an editor and military history correspondent for Military Times. She is also a World War II researcher with an unparalleled affinity for Sir Winston Churchill and Michigan football.
The pamphlet, issued to American GIs about to travel overseas to Britain, was intended to ease any friction between the young servicemen and the locals.
West’s genius secured her a position in 1956 at the Naval Support Facility Dahlgren, then called Naval Proving Ground, where she worked for over 40 years.
Spanktown, name thusly after an early settler publicly took his spouse across his knee and chastised her, was to play an important role in the Forage Wars.