Austria During American Occupation

The Geműtlichkeit was riddled by flashes of bitterness

Ch. 88 My Mother and Audie Murphy

Flo pasted this page from an English language newspaper in her album. The story gives more details about what it was like for Americans and Austrians alike during the occupation. It mentions that the Red Cross had a club in the Mirabell casino in Salzburg and it’s a good bet Flo spent time there. She may have had to work serving coffee and donuts there.

Ice cream and jitterbugging

(In Vienna the Army) set up replicas of US drugstores where GI’s could take their Austrian girls for a soda (daily ice cream consumption of the US army and friends in Vienna now runs to 60,000 scoops.) Among venerable establishments, Broadwayish nightclubs sprouted. Racily named Esquire, Zebra, and Heideho, they offered in neat, cultural synthesis US style jazz and Viennese style wine instead of hard liquor.

Better than Vienna, GI’s liked Salzburg with its mossy stone and patinated copper. The Red Cross had moved into the Mirabell casino and the GI’s listened to symphony concerts in the Mirabell castle’s gardens. Then, oblivious to the echoes of Mozart’s minuets, they jitterbugged in the old, staid Hotel Pitter….

The Red Cross club at the Mirabell casino in Salzburg

Nearby, built directly against the rough mountainside, was the Festspielhaus, through whose cavernous yard had boomed the theatrical damnation of Dr. Faust. The GI metamorphosis had turned it into a movie house nostalgically named the Roxy. And around Salzburg’s Bierjodelgasse (beer-yodel street) GI’s noisily scouted for beer gardens.

The favorite outdoor sport was chamois hunting in the mountains hovering over the city–where the game poacher has always been a highly respected member of society, and where one of Austria’s most important bits of national philosophy originated: If you hadn’t climbed up you wouldn’t have fallen down.

Krauts and cokes

Although Americans had made a better impression on Austrians than any other people in Europe, the Geműtlichkeit (good feeling) was riddled by flashes of bitterness. Usually broad minded, the Viennese grew jealous, called girls who fraternized with the chocolate-bearing GI’s “chocoladies.” The sprinkling (5%) of combat veterans among US troops called the Austrians just plain krauts only softer.

Last month soldiers in the US zone were booked for 32 assaults, 5 rapes, 3 disorderly conducts, and one house breaking. Cracked an MP officer: “Now that we’re getting quantity supplies of Coca-Cola maybe our boys will get back to behaving.” But most GI’s in Austria already had passing marks for behavior; and many were living up to their orientation slogan, “Soldier, you are helping Austria.” The first crop of Austrian babies fathered by helpful GI’s is sizable.

Kassel and the Hesse Area

Traveling Around the American Occupation Zone

Ch. 87 My Mother and Audie Murphy

Kassel, Germany, was a critical WWII target due to its Henschel & Sohn factories (building tanks like Tigers and Panthers) and major railway hub. The city suffered devastating Allied bombing from 1942-1945, especially the October 1943 raid that destroyed the city center and killed thousands. Few inhabitants were left by the time US forces captured it in April 1945 after intense fighting, concluding a brutal chapter of destruction. The Third Infantry Division was heavily involved in the fight for Kassel before securing the region, and later established its command structure in the surrounding Hesse area. 

From pictures on this page of her album, it appears Flo was able to travel around the Hesse area as a tourist. She was probably continuing to dish out donuts to occupation troops from the clubmobile.

Typical kraut village
Division formation, Reinhardshausen
View from Furstenhof
Lt. Cols. Chaney and Rosson of Portland, C.C. and Exec. Kassel, Germany
Maj. Prever, Lt.Col. King, Col. McGarr, Lt. Col. Ramsey, Maj. Wickersham, 3rd Div. HQ staff
Staff quarters. Flo with Col. McGarr (R)

Ch. 88: https://mollymartin.blog/2026/01/15/austria-during-american-occupation/

Stationed at Bad Wildungen

Allied Occupation Forces Settle In

The route of the 3rd Division during the war is posted at the HQ entrance: Morocco, Tunisia, Sicily, Naples-Foggia, Rome-Arno, So. France, Rhineland, Cent. Europe.

Ch. 86 My Mother and Audie Murphy

In July 1945, the Third Infantry Division moved its headquarters to the spa town of Bad Wildungen, Germany, and that’s where Flo was stationed during the Allied occupation.

Bad Wildungen was known as a significant storage site for looted German cultural treasures, with American forces discovering vast caches of art and artifacts in bunkers there in April 1945 as the war ended. The town itself remained relatively undamaged, becoming part of the American occupation zone.

Photos: Flo Wick

Back to Ch. 1: https://mollymartin.blog/2024/11/04/my-mother-and-audie-murphy/

Ch. 87: https://mollymartin.blog/2026/01/11/kassel-and-the-hesse-area/

Audie Murphy Comes Home

Most decorated American soldier of WWII

My Mother and Audie Murphy Ch. 85

Audie Murphy returns home in June 1945 to a hero’s welcome of parades, swarming reporters and his face on the cover of Life Magazine. At just twenty years old, he is celebrated as the most decorated American soldier of World War II, awarded the Medal of Honor along with more than 30 US and foreign decorations for extraordinary valor in combat. The public sees a slight, soft-spoken Texan who embodied courage and sacrifice, but behind the accolades Murphy carries the psychological weight of prolonged frontline combat, the loss of close comrades, and memories that will not easily fade.

In the years after the war, Murphy remains connected to the Army even as he struggles to adjust to civilian life. He continues to serve in the Texas Army National Guard, eventually reaching the rank of major, and becomes an outspoken advocate for recognizing what is now known as post-traumatic stress disorder, then poorly understood and often dismissed. By publicly acknowledging his nightmares, insomnia, and dependence on medication, Murphy challenges the myth that heroism ends suffering. His postwar Army career, marked by continued service and hard-won honesty, expands his legacy beyond battlefield valor to include a lasting contribution to how veterans’ mental health is understood and discussed.

Ch. 86: https://mollymartin.blog/2026/01/07/stationed-at-bad-wildungen/

A Visit to Stratford-upon-Avon

Flo gets to see some Shakespeare too

Ch. 84 My Mother and Audie Murphy

Stratford-upon-Avon, as we all know, is the 16th-century birthplace and burial place of William Shakespeare. The medieval market town in England’s West Midlands is about 100 miles northwest of London. The Royal Shakespeare Company still performs his plays in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre and adjacent Swan Theatre on the banks of the River Avon. Flo visited in mid-June, 1945.

She attended the Shakespeare Festival
Stratford-on-Avon Red Cross club. Photos from Flo’s album
Shakespeare’s house
Flo didn’t identify this woman, her host at the Red Cross club
Sailing back to the Continent. Leaving England for Dieppe at the end of the week-long leave.

Stratford-upon-Avon had faced the threat and effects of the Blitz through scattered incidents and as a sanctuary, rather than being a central target for sustained bombing like larger industrial or military centers. During the war the town provided refuge, with people from heavily bombed areas like Birmingham coming to Stratford for quiet and respite from the relentless night raids.

Ch. 85: https://mollymartin.blog/2026/01/04/audie-murphy-comes-home/

Seeing the Sights in London

“Have walked holes in my feet”

Ch. 83: My Mother and Audie Murphy

Flo arrived in London in June, 1945 for a seven-day leave. In a postcard to her family Flo wrote: 

“London is huge and interesting. Not as badly bombed as I had thought. Weather much like Seattle. Have walked holes in my feet. Everything terribly expensive.”

She ran into a friend from Seattle, Jim Quitslund, who was staying across the street from her billet. 

With Jim Quitslund, the Army friend from Seattle, billeted across the street in London.

Big Ben. Photos by Flo Wick
Parliament
Tower of London
Tower of London
St. Paul’s Cathedral
The wax museum
Government buildings seen from across the Thames

The Blitz focused on London

Starting on September 7, 1940, London faced 57 straight nights of bombing by Nazi Germany, part of a concentrated eight-month campaign known as the Blitz.

Flo wrote that the bombing damage was not as bad as she had thought, but she may not have made it to the East End, which sustained the most bombing. The Luftwaffe raids were aimed at disrupting the British economy by targeting docks, warehouses, and industrial areas. The damage was devastating, characterized by massive fires, widespread destruction of working-class housing, and high civilian casualties there.

An estimated 18,688 civilians in London were killed during the war, 1.5 million were made homeless. 3.5 million homes and 9 million square feet of office space were destroyed or damaged.

Ch. 84: https://mollymartin.blog/2026/01/01/a-visit-to-stratford-on-avon/

London Leave

Flo travels to Paris in C-47 with kraut generals

My Mother and Audie Murphy Ch. 83

In June Flo got a seven-day leave to travel to the UK. In a postcard dated June 11, 1945 she wrote her mother that she flew from Austria to Paris on a C-47. On the plane she photographed “kraut generals, fellow passengers en route to prison.” 

Flo stopped in Paris for a couple of days to visit her sister Eve who was still working as a nurse at an army hospital there. Then she traveled to London by boat.

On the C-47, Flo captioned this picture “Kraut generals, fellow passengers en route to prison.”
Flo’s postcard to her mother on her birthday. Bob is Flo’s sister Eve’s husband, also in the military and stationed in England.
Flo’s sister, Eve, with the C.O. of the 203rd general hospital in Paris.
Flo and her sister Eve who worked as a nurse at the 203rd general hospital in Paris
London welcomes the US Armed Forces
From the postcard back: American Red Cross Rainbow Corner, whose doors never close (opened Nov. 11, 1942) welcomes and serves the American Forces with food, entertainment, information, tours and hospitality. Rainbow Corner is the meeting place of Americans in England.

Red Cross Service Clubs

During WWII in England, the American Red Cross ran numerous “Service Clubs” and “Aeroclubs,” like the famous Rainbow Corner Club in London, serving millions of GIs with food, lodging, and recreation, with numbers constantly changing as troops arrived and departed, but focusing on large operations near bases.

London was the biggest city in the world

At the beginning of the war in 1939, London was the largest city in the world, with 8.2 million inhabitants. It was the capital not just for the United Kingdom, but for the entire British Empire. London was central to the British war effort. 

Ch. 84: https://mollymartin.blog/2025/12/28/seeing-the-sights-in-london/

Regimental Review Schloss Klessheim

Audie Murphy Honored

My Mother and Audie Murphy Ch. 82

On June 2, 1945, the Third Infantry Division assembled for a division-wide review in Salzburg, their ranks drawn up before their headquarters. Flo was there with her clubmobile crew, Liz Elliott and Janet Potts, watching as Seventh Army commander General Alexander Patch presented decorations and commendations. A Congressional delegation stood in review alongside Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson, among them South Dakota Senator Chan Gurney, the first chairman of the Senate Committee on Armed Forces.

June 2, 1945. This is the last picture of the three Red Cross clubmobilers together–Janet Potts, Flo Wick and Liz Elliott. Fritzie Hoaglund never returned to the crew after having been hospitalized.

That day, Lieutenant Audie Murphy of B Company, 15th Regiment, received the Medal of Honor and the Legion of Merit in front of his entire division. Five other Third Division soldiers were awarded the Distinguished Service Cross and the Silver Star, their citations read aloud to the troops who had fought across Europe and now stood at attention in peacetime formation.

Gen. O’Daniel shakes the hand of 1st Lt. Audie Murphy of B Company, 15th Regiment, 3rd Division. Murphy received the Medal of Honor and the Legion of Merit on June 2, 1945 in front of his entire division in Salzburg, Austria. Photo: Dogface soldier collection

The ceremony took place at a site heavy with layered history. Built in 1700 as a Baroque summer residence for the Prince-Archbishops of Salzburg, the palace later became a Nazi showpiece where Hitler hosted Axis leaders and stored looted art as the Reich collapsed. Captured by the U.S. Third Infantry Division in May 1945, it was repurposed as headquarters of the American Occupation Authority during the decade-long U.S. presence in Salzburg, before eventually becoming a casino.

Gen. J. W. O’Daniel 3rd Div. Commander; Flo Wick, ARC; Gen Alex Patch 7th Army commander. June 1945. Schloss Klessheim Salzburg
A delegation of the US Congress witnessed the Audie Murphy ceremony. Chan Gurney, South Dakota, the first chairman of the US senate committee on Armed Services, is seen here with Flo.
Letter from Sen. Gurney to Flo’s parents. He thought they were South Dakota constituents. Flo was born in Redfiled, SD, but the family hadn’t lived there since she was a baby. They lived in Yakima, WA. Her father had died in 1938.
On June 2, 1945 the 3rd Division staged a grand review at Schloss Klessheim.
Soldiers march past the reviewing stand. photos from Flo’s album

Ch. 83: https://tradeswomn.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=5990&action=edit

Goodbye to the High Pointers

Clubmobilers bid farewell to soldiers going home

My Mother and Audie Murphy Ch. 80

When Germany surrendered on May 8, 1945, the U.S. Army in Europe suddenly had to shift from fighting to occupying a defeated nation. More than two million soldiers now had to be sorted into three paths: those who would stay in Germany as an occupation force, those who would be sent to the Pacific for the expected invasion of Japan, and those who would finally go home. Because the Army had more men than it needed for occupation and redeployment, it also had to begin discharging veterans fairly and quickly.

General George C. Marshall had foreseen this challenge. Drawing on hard lessons from the chaotic demobilization after World War I, he ordered the Special Planning Division in 1943 to craft a method that would release soldiers on an individual basis rather than by entire units. With divisions in Europe filled with late-war replacements, unit-based demobilization was impossible—and delay risked unrest among idle troops.

After gathering input from commanders worldwide, the army created the Adjusted Service Rating Score, universally known to GIs as the point system. It offered an objective way to determine who went home first. Points were awarded for time in service, time overseas, combat campaigns, decorations, wounds, and dependent children:

  • 1 point per month in the Army
  • +1 point per month overseas
  • 5 points per campaign
  • 5 points per decoration for merit or valor
  • 5 points per Purple Heart
  • 12 points per dependent child (up to three)

This system became the backbone of America’s demobilization in Europe.

Janet and Flo hand out the last donuts to soldiers as they board the train for home
Salzburg train station. Photos from Flo’s album

Flo stayed on in Europe until March, 1946, and I had assumed she signed up to serve in the Red Cross during the occupation. But I think she was just as anxious to return home as all the other American soldiers and staff–she just couldn’t get out any sooner. It’s not clear whether Red Cross workers received points, or whether they even fell under the rating score system.

Ch. 81: https://mollymartin.blog/2025/12/20/regimental-review-schloss-klessheim/