In the mid-1990s while researching her book,  U.S. Submarines in World War II, author Margaret Regis came across something she had never heard before: During World War II, the Japanese imprisoned thousands of American women and their children in the Philippines.

“This was a revelation to me,” said Regis. “I knew about World War II mainly from the perspective of the men who fought. The idea that American women and children were in the battle zone, suffering the hazards of war amazed me. I wondered why these stories weren’t widely known.”

The lack of historical reporting on women in World War II (with a few exceptions such as the iconic “Rosie the Riveter”) left a huge gap in the nation’s understanding of the war. Digging deeper, Regis soon learned about female war correspondents and about families that escaped from occupied countries. Through a tip from the director of the Naval Undersea Museum, she met and interviewed a 90-year-old army nurse POW who had served in the jungles of Bataan.

This led to more interviews: a Pearl Harbor survivor, women who worked on the home front, served in the military, or had wartime romances. The stories and roles of women began to open before her as she followed the often convoluted trails behind a casual reference in a newspaper or wartime memoir. Linking these pieces of information, Regis gradually built a comprehensive picture of the diverse challenges women faced during World War II. This became the foundation for her new book, When Our Mothers Went to War.

The search for photos proved a formidable undertaking. Some came from the women themselves— photos they had kept for years in albums. Others were unearthed from the National Archives, the Library of Congress, and an array of other libraries and archives, including the Women’s Memorial in Washington, D.C.

“Writing this book has been a journey of discovery,” said Regis. “The courage and resourcefulness of these women in the face of overwhelming change is an inspiration.”

“I’ve seen women’s reactions when they pick up this book,” she added. “This isn’t the history they learned in school. It’s the story of their mother and their grandmother. And they find it fascinating.”

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Writer and historian Margaret Regis is the coauthor of two other illustrated books on World War II:  The Attack on Pearl Harbor  and U.S. Submarines in World War II.