By April, 1945 the war’s end was inevitable. The Soviets broke through German defenses and surrounded Berlin. Artillery shells rained down on the capital as Hitler, holed up in his bunker beneath the Reich Chancellery, raged against reality. On April 20, the bombardment of Berlin began. Five days later, Soviet and American troops met at the Elbe River, cutting Germany in half. In Italy, Benito Mussolini was captured by partisans and executed on April 28. Two days later, on April 30, Adolf Hitler killed himself in his underground bunker.
In Schloss Klessheim, VE-Day partiers hold up a liberated pair of Hermann Goring’s pajamas. Photo: Dogface Soldiers Collection
Berlin fell on May 2. Soviet troops raised their flag over the Reichstag, signaling the final collapse of the Third Reich. Across northern Europe, German armies laid down their arms: in Denmark, the Netherlands, and northwest Germany on May 4. In Prague, a last uprising flared as German resistance crumbled.
On May 7, German representatives signed an unconditional surrender at Reims, France, in the presence of Allied commanders. The next day—May 8, 1945—the war in Europe was officially over. Crowds filled the streets of London, Paris, and New York, singing, embracing, and weeping with relief. In Moscow, the celebration came a day later, on May 9, when the surrender was ratified in Berlin according to Soviet time.
Photo: Dogface Soldier Collection
The guns finally fell silent. After nearly six years of war, Europe lay in ruins—but free of Nazi rule. The deadliest war in history involved more than 30 countries around the globe. More than 50 million people lost their lives during the war.
We don’t know where Flo was on VE-Day, but it’s a good guess she was partying somewhere. She left the page in her album blank.
The page in Flo’s album
Audie Murphy is on leave, riding a train to the French Riviera when the war is declared over. In a Cannes hotel, he bathes and naps, but he can’t get images of the war out of his mind.
He wrote: “We have been so intent on death that we have forgotten life. And now suddenly life faces us. I swear to myself that I will measure up to it. I may be branded by war, but I will not be defeated by it.”
In To Hell and Back, Murphy tells of the last days of the war.
After the crossing of the Rhine, the dike seems to crumble, and a flood of men and equipment pours into Germany. Even the most fanatical Nazis must sense that the game is over, yet they still deceive the population with promises that resistance will bring a negotiated peace rather than unconditional surrender. If they still want war, the Americans give it to them. With victory in sight, they do not soften. Artillery levels sections of towns; flames lick across burning buildings. Infantry and armor prowl rubble-strewn streets, and blood flows needlessly through the gutters.
A column of German prisoners is escorted by 3rd Division soldiers after their capture in Nuremberg, Germany. The fight for the city from April 17-20, 1945 was a tough one for the 3rd Division including mines, booby traps, Panzerfaust, snipers and futile counterattacks. Photo: Dogface Soldier
As the battle lines roll forward, windows drip with white flags. Any house without the mark of surrender receives no polite warning; soldiers rake its windows with machine-gun fire to correct the oversight. The tactic works.
Murphy is transferred to liaison duty, serving as the contact man between the division’s units. Near Munich, he enters a prison camp with his gun drawn and comes face-to-face with a German guard. The prisoners insist the man is a “good joe.” Murphy hears the phrase and thinks bitterly, Maybe he is. But I cannot see men anymore—I see only uniforms. He holsters his pistol.
The German mumbles something and stumbles toward a set of steps.
“There is something pathetically human about his odd, hobbled walk…. Perhaps it is the knowledge that we carry in our hearts that nobody ultimately wins. Somewhere we all go down. Force used tyrannically is our common enemy. Why align ourselves with it in whatever shape or fashion.“
A man and woman inspect their damaged home in Neuheusen east of Bamberg. Photo: Dogface
Then comes the great picture of mass defeat, the most overwhelming sight of the war. It appears in the bent figures of old women poking through ruins for some miserable relic of the past; in the shamed, darting eyes of the beaten; in the faces of little boys who watch the triumphant columns with fear and fascination. Above all, it appears in the thousands of dusty, exhausted soldiers streaming toward the stockades. Their feet clump wearily, mechanically, hopelessly along the seemingly endless road of war. They move as haggard gray masses in which the individual has no life and no meaning. It is impossible now to see in these men the fierce power that made them fight like demons out of hell only a few months before.
Everyone knew about General George Patton’s infamous “slapping incidents,” when he physically attacked two soldiers under his command at hospital evacuation centers in August 1943. The episodes became international news — two among several erratic outbursts that may have led to his eventual removal as commander of the Seventh Army in Europe.
A woman sifts through the rubble of her home in Steinach. In the first half of April, 1945, the allies moved quickly through German towns, many already destroyed by bombing. photos: Dogface Soldier.
The men Patton slapped had been diagnosed with “exhaustion” and “psychoneurosis,” terms then used for what we now recognize as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). During the First World War, it was called “shell shock.”
Patton didn’t believe in shell shock.
Steinach saw a fierce battle on April 7 before the Nazis retreated. Photo: Dogface Soldier collection
In a directive issued to his commanders, he explicitly forbade “battle fatigue” in the Seventh Army:
It has come to my attention that a very small number of soldiers are going to the hospital on the pretext that they are nervously incapable of combat. Such men are cowards and bring discredit on the army and disgrace to their comrades, whom they heartlessly leave to endure the dangers of battle while they, themselves, use the hospital as a means of escape. You will take measures to see that such cases are not sent to the hospital but dealt with in their units. Those who are not willing to fight will be tried by court-martial for cowardice in the face of the enemy. — Patton directive to the Seventh Army, August 5, 1943
At the time, the Army Medical Department was beginning to study what would later be classified as PTSD, but most of the officer corps still regarded it as cowardice.
The devastation in Lohr was mostly caused by American artillery. Photo: Dogface Soldier collection
Audie Murphy, who saw more front-line combat than almost any other American soldier, witnessed many such breakdowns. As the war dragged on and he watched more men “crack up,” his own understanding and empathy evolved. The first episode he describes in To Hell and Back is met with derision from his men — and from himself:
“Olsen is the first to crack up. He throws his arms around the company commander, crying hysterically, ‘I can’t take any more.’ The harassed captain tries to calm him, but Olsen will not stop bawling. So he is sent to the rear, and we watch him go with hatred in our eyes. ‘If I ever throw a whingding like that, shoot me,’ says Kerrigan. ‘Gladly,’ I reply. ‘In North Africa I thought he was one tough boy.’ ‘Yeah, he threw his weight around plenty.’ ‘He seemed to be everything the War Department was looking for. He was my idea of a real soldier. Then one night that little Italian, Corrego, came in drunk; and Olsen beat him up.’ ‘He should have been shot right then.’”
Lohr saw heavy fighting as allies advanced on April 3. Photo: Dogface Soldier collection.
Later, Murphy watches another man lose his senses and die as a result:
“Staggering with weariness and snarling like wolves, we meet the Germans again… We slip within 200 yards of their lines before they turn the full force of their weapons upon us. Obviously, they intend our complete annihilation. Under the furious punishment, a man a few yards from me cracks up. He begins with a weeping jag; then, yelling insanely, he rises to his feet and charges straight toward the German lines. A sniper drills him through the head; and a burp gun slashes his body as he falls.”
Poppenlaur displayed flagsmade from any white fabric that could be found. Photo: Dogface Soldier.
Near the end of the war, Murphy’s tone shifts. He shows compassion and understanding when a soldier named Anders returns to the front, determined to stay with his comrades despite his shattered nerves:
“Before we have had time to regroup for instructions, the shells fall into our midst. Eight men are knocked out; and Anders cracks up. It is not his fault. He has courage to spare, but body and nerves have taken all they can stand. He has heard one explosion too many; seen one too many die. As we check the dead and wounded, his voice goes thick. I grab him by the shoulder. He shudders and begins to shake violently. ‘What’s the matter?’ ‘I’ve gone all to pieces.’ ‘Stay here and wait for the medics. You shouldn’t have come back up.’ ‘N-n-no. No. No.’ ‘You’re no good in that shape.’ ‘I’ll come out of it.’ ‘The hell you will. You can’t let the men see you in that condition.’ ‘I’ll be quiet. I won’t say anything.’ ‘You’re going to tell it to the doctor.’ ‘If you think so, maybe I should. Maybe I should.’ He rejoins us the next day. I curse him heartily, but he only grins. When we come under heavy artillery fire, that grin is quickly erased. His nerves collapse again… Whether or not he knows or wants it, he is through. Finished. This time when I send him to the rear, I also send the colonel word to keep him there.”
Photo: Wikipedia
Murphy himself suffered from PTSD for the rest of his life. After the war, he spoke publicly about it and tried to alert the Army to its dangers — but at the time, the brass didn’t want to hear it.
Meanwhile, during the war, doctors at an airbase hospital in Arizona began recognizing and treating PTSD with compassion rather than punishment or electroshock. Their pioneering work inspired the 1963 film Captain Newman, M.D., starring Gregory Peck, Tony Curtis, Angie Dickinson, Bobby Darin, and other notables. Five stars from me.
First 3rd Division Medal of Honor Recipient Killed in Action
My Mother and Audie Murphy Ch. 55
Flo devoted a page in her album to the first Third Division Congressional Medal of Honor award recipient, Lt. David Waybur or Piedmont, California. She noted that he was killed in action near the end of the war in March, 1945.
Page in Flo’s album. Pinch out to read the whole story.
From the story: The Army, chances are, will never be a great writer. Its taciturn prose travels on a punchless belly. But some of the most spectacular stories of this war are being scribbled on battlefields in the sparse, lean, GI prose of army officers writing to headquarters of the heroism of men unto them.
Such a story is told in the recommendation for a citation for Lieutenant David C Waybur, 24… A graduate of Piedmont high school, a former grocery clerk, David Waybur enlisted in the army at the end of his second year at the University of California in 1940. Three years later, in the dead of night, young Waybur rode to army immortality at the head of a little fleet of three jeeps and fought, jeeps versus enemy tanks, a never-to-be-forgotten engagement beside a blown up bridge in Sicily.
Audie Murphy also received the Congressional Medal of Honor, the highest US military decoration for valor, awarded by the President in the name of Congress.
Third Division fights its toughest battle of the war
My Mother and Audie Murphy Ch. 53
The fight for the Colmar Pocket rages through late January 1945, a brutal campaign largely overshadowed by the final days of the Battle of the Bulge. Audie Murphy, then a young lieutenant in the 15th Infantry Regiment, endures the worst days of his war.
Bailey bridge built next to the bridge over the Ill Riverdestroyed by a tank falling in. Photo: Dogface
Through the freezing night he and his men take turns on watch. He nods off, his hair freezing to the ground, and wakes with a jerk when gunfire cracks, leaving patches of hair in the ice. By morning, a bridge over the Ill River is finally usable; a few tanks cross to join them—comforting, but also a sign that there will be no retreat.
They form up for another attack. The quiet woods erupt—mortars, machine guns, rifle fire. Murphy watches two lieutenants leap into the same foxhole; a shell follows them in and ends their lives instantly. He is knocked down by another blast, his legs peppered with fragments, but still able to fight. Tanks push forward, only to be hit and burst into flames. Crewmen stumble out, burning, screaming, cut down by enemy bullets as they roll in the snow.
Communications wire strung over German materiel. Photo: Dogface soldier collection
By nightfall the company is shattered. They huddle in the cold, eating greasy rations, waiting for ammunition and replacements. Company B has lost 102 of its 120 men; every officer but Murphy is gone. With only seventeen men left in his zone, he receives orders: move to the edge of the woods facing Holtzwihr, dig in, and hold.
The ground is too frozen to dig, so they stamp along the road to stay warm, waiting for daylight—the most dangerous hour. Their promised support does not arrive. Two tank destroyers move up, but by afternoon the situation worsens. Six German tanks roll out of Holtzwihr and fan across the field, followed by waves of infantry in white snowcapes.
Crew with an 8 inch howitzer and a heavy machine gun. Photo: Dogface soldier collection
One tank destroyer slides uselessly into a ditch; the crew bails out. Artillery begins to fall on Murphy’s position. A tree burst wipes out a machine-gun squad. The second tank destroyer takes a direct hit; its surviving crew staggers away. Murphy realizes the line is collapsing. Of 128 men who began the drive, fewer than forty remain, and he is the last officer. He orders the men to pull back.
While directing artillery fire by telephone, he fires his carbine until he runs out of ammunition. As he turns to retreat, he sees the burning tank destroyer. Its machine gun is intact. German tanks veer left, giving the flaming vehicle a wide berth. Murphy drags the field phone up onto the wreck, hauls a dead officer’s body out of the hatch, and uses the hull for cover.
Loading an M-2 chemical mortar. Photo: Dogface soldier collection
From the turret he mans the machine gun, calling artillery on the field while firing into the advancing infantry. Smoke swirls; the heat of the fire warms his frozen feet for the first time in days. He cuts down squad after squad, sowing confusion; the Germans cannot locate him and expect the burning vehicle to explode at any moment.
When the smoke lifts briefly, he spots a dozen Germans crouched in a roadside ditch only yards away. He waits for the wind to clear the haze, then traverses the barrel and drops all twelve. He orders more artillery. Shells crash around him; the enemy infantry is shredded, and the German tanks pull back toward Holtzwihr without support.
A tank destroyer in the Colmar battle. Photo: Dogface soldier collection
Another bombardment knocks out his telephone line. Stunned, Murphy finds his map shredded with fragments and one leg bleeding. It hardly registers. Numb and exhausted, he climbs off the tank destroyer and walks back through the woods, indifferent to whether the Germans shoot him or not.
Stretcher crew of medics. Photo: Dogface soldier collection
Murphy was 19 years old.These are the actions that win him the Congressional Medal of Honor.
I assumed these landscape photos were pictures of the lovely French Alsace town of Sainte-Marie-Aux-Mines. That is until I turned them over and read, or tried to read, the captions. They describe Markkleeberg, a town in the Saxony region of Germany near Leipzig. It’s now described as a suburb of Leipzig.
According to AI, the captions on the back are in German, written in an old-fashioned cursive handwriting, and the captions read: “General view, War memorial, Old gatehouse, and Richter and Sons in Markkleeberg, December 1940”.
Professionally made photos with numbers in the right lower corner, they could be postcards. I can’t imagine who might have taken them, who wrote the captions, or why Flo put them on a page headlined Sainte-Marie-Aux-Mines. The Third Division had not yet crossed the Rhine into Germany, although Audie Murphy wrote that a number of Allied units had entered Germany by January, 1945.
The other three photos on this page are captioned Marie of Ville France; Lt. Reardon, me, Janet, Lt. Nelson. Fraize, France; and Sgt. Holbrook, St. Die France ad center.
After weeks in the hospital with a gangrenous hip wound, Murphy returns to the lines in late January 1945—just in time for the brutal fighting around the Colmar Pocket during the coldest winter in fifty years. Snow lies two feet deep, and the cold cuts through even the thickest layers.
Attack plan. The 3rd Division is with the 7th Army under Gen. Patch
By the time he rejoins his unit, the Third Division has pushed through the Vosges, smashed the German winter line, and reached the Rhine at Strasbourg. Germany lies just beyond the river, close enough to see, but still weeks—and many casualties—away from any attempted crossing.
The entire front is restless. To the north, the Battle of the Bulge is sputtering out. American units are crossing into Germany, seeking firm ground for the spring offensive. Columns of men and supplies move constantly across frozen French and Belgian roads. But the men at the front think only of the task immediately ahead: eliminating the Colmar Pocket, a heavily fortified German position stretching toward the Swiss border.
A supply convoy makes it way over a snowy road toward Colmar. Photo dogface soldier
The pocket is a dangerous bridgehead jutting west of the Rhine, fed by steady reinforcements from across the river. It threatens the Allies’ right flank and could serve as a launch point for a massive German counterattack. The Third Division has already trimmed its northern edge and now stands near Guémar, ready to strike at the center.
The terrain favors the Germans. Icy winds sweep down from the Vosges. Forest patches, open fields, and fortified villages form their defense. Tanks hide in the woods, covering the plains the Americans must cross. Temperatures rarely climb above fourteen degrees. Snow reaches to the knees. Even without enemy fire, the nights are a battle simply to avoid freezing.
Soldiers in snow cloaks on the way to Colmar. Photo: dogface soldier
Two rivers, the Fecht and the Ill, lie between the division and the enemy. At night, the 7th and 30th Regiments slip across the Fecht after breaching German lines. The 7th pushes south to strike Ostheim; the 30th clears a forest and captures a small wooden bridge over the Ill. That fragile track becomes the hinge of the entire operation.
The 30th crosses it and prepares to attack two small villages, Holtzwihr and Riedwihr, separated by a stretch of woodland. At 4:30 in the afternoon, disaster strikes: ten German tanks and tank destroyers smash into the 3rd Battalion near Holtzwihr. The infantry have no protection. The frozen ground is too hard to dig into. The tanks break the battalion into pockets and rake them with machine-gun fire.
Training for warfare in the snow. Photo: dogface soldier collection
An hour later, the 1st Battalion is hit near Riedwihr and torn apart in the same way. Survivors retreat toward the Ill, some swimming through the icy water, emerging with their uniforms stiff with icicles.
Murphy’s regiment, held in reserve, is rushed forward. At 3 a.m., the 3rd Battalion attempts to establish a bridgehead across the Ill. It gains ground until a counterattack with four German tanks drives it back to the river.
A grave registration unit operates 10 miles north of Colmar. Photo: dogface soldier collection
It becomes clear that without tanks of their own, the infantry are battering themselves against a stone wall. Still, the attacks must continue—the Germans cannot be allowed to maneuver freely or shift their strength. If given the chance, they could destroy the Allied forces piecemeal.
Behind the lines, engineers work frantically to build a bridge across the Ill. Murphy and the men of his regiment fight simply to hold the enemy back long enough for that bridge to be completed.
October 1944. Flo’s diary is blank from October 2 to October 7, 1944. There’s no way to know what happened during that time, but there are clues. My cousin told me that at some point during the war Flo went to Paris for an abortion. I wrote about it here: https://mollymartin.blog/2022/04/16/solving-a-wwii-era-mystery/. The city had been liberated in late August and it would have been possible for Flo to travel there and back in five days. Flo stayed in touch with her sister, Eve, who was serving as an Army nurse in a Paris hospital. Eve told me that Flo had also suffered a miscarriage while hauling heavy equipment. Flo never wrote about any of it in her diary, and she never spoke of it later. But whatever happened during that week, it was serious enough to stop her from writing altogether.
Flo’s diary (pinch out to read)
By October 8, Flo and Liz were back in action, serving hundreds of donuts to American troops every day. They had moved from Remiremont to nearby Saint-Nabord, a grim, war-torn area where they now lived in their clubmobile. One day they drove to Luxeuil for photos. Another day they served the replacement depot while a military band played. And then they bounced across a pontoon bridge into Saint-Amé, until their battered old sedan gave out. The clutch snapped halfway over the bridge and couldn’t be repaired.
During this time, they served the 15th Infantry—Audie Murphy’s unit—a couple of times. The men were quiet, polite, exhausted. After some hard battles, the 15th was finally getting a little rest. But Murphy was not among them. He had been wounded in the fight for Cleurie Quarry. At the aid station, he learned that nearly his whole platoon had been wiped out the night before. Because of the rain and mud, the wounded men could not be evacuated for three days. At the hospital Murphy learned gangrene had resulted. He would be out of commission until January.
In breaks from battle, the army handed out medals. The Third Division took home more than any other. This would be Murphy’s third purple heart.
Flo was able to see her fiancé Gene occasionally, as his unit, the 36th combat engineers, was stationed nearby. They met for church, a dance and meals at his camp. They planned to marry by Christmas and he had ordered rings for them.
Form letter asking for permission to marry
On October 1, Flo sent a formal request to William Stevenson at Red Cross headquarters for permission to marry Gene. The form letter says,
“If permission is granted, it will be predicated on the sole understanding that it will in no way interfere with my responsibilities to Red Cross and that I will carry on my obligation to the organization. I shall gladly carry out my duties wherever the organization may ask me to serve and I will not request transfers within the theater or elsewhere because of my desire to be with or near Capt. Gustafson.”
In her accompanying letter, Flo had again managed to put her writing skill into practice. Whatever she wrote convinced the ARC. She received permission to marry in a warm letter from Eleanor “Elly” Parker, Director of Staff Welfare, dated October 23.
She wrote, “Thanks very much for your nice letter and I feel much more comfy issuing your marriage approval after having your explanation of exactly what is happening….You sound well surrounded by friends and family in France and I am glad you enjoy being there….I imagine that you are terribly busy and very hard at work under pretty trying cricumstances….
Permission granted and our shoes are boring (sorry)
Apparently Flo also had asked about getting some shoes after her nice shoes were stolen in Italy. But Elly Parker wrote that all they have at the PX are “regular black Red Cross shoes.” Not exactly what Flo, a lifelong shoe queen, had in mind.
On October 12, German planes flew overhead. Everyone looked up at the roar, held their breath as the anti-aircraft fire opened up—and missed.
One page in Flo’s album is devoted to the combat engineers—soldiers whose construction work enabled the army to move men, machines, and supplies into active war zones.
Bailey Bridge at Monto Alto above Rome, Topping out
Combat engineers were tasked with everything from building roads and bridges to clearing mines, digging tunnels, demolishing obstacles, and performing emergency construction under fire. Their work was both strategic and dangerous, often done at the front lines or just behind them.
Constructing a bridge across Mussolini canal, Pontoon bridges across the Tiber River in Rome
Flo’s fiancé, Gene, served with the 36th Engineer Combat Group. The engineers were proud of their mission, and Gene gave Flo photos of some of the bridges his unit built. She carefully arranged them in her album, alongside a special edition of Beachhead News from April 15, 1945, dedicated to the 36th.
From Beachhead News
The Men of 100 and 1 Jobs—And the 36th Engineers Have Done Most of ’Em
“One of the most reliable indexes of the efficiency of an outfit is the manner in which it moves. When the 36th Engineer Combat Group pushes on to a new position, the process is painless, matter-of-fact, and quick. It bespeaks an expertness born of long practice—an easy, unconscious cooperation that is the stamp of a smart outfit.
It takes time and constant repetition to produce this kind of ease—not only in moving—but also in the hundred and one other highly specialized types of work that combat engineers are required to perform. Having landed at Fedala, North Africa, on D-Day in 1942, and fought up through Sicily, Salerno, Anzio, France, and Germany, the 36th has learned its know-how the hard way.”
The article goes on to chronicle the unit’s contributions across multiple campaigns—a record of grit and expertise that Flo proudly preserved.
“It looms like the King’s Mountain in the Revolutionary War.”
My Mother and Audie Murphy Ch. 37
Early October, 1944.Murphy is now the last one standing of his original unit. The Third Division is driving into the Vosges mountain chain, which is the chief obstacle lying between the Allies and the Rhine. From his autobiography To Hell and Back:
Rain, cold, and the threat of early snow slow the advance. The terrain favors the Germans: dense forests hide snipers and machine guns, and the enemy holds the steep slopes with artillery, mortars, and night patrols that slip into American lines. Murphy keeps his bayonet sharp and close.
Their next objective is a quarry near Cleurie. On the map it is small, but in battle it dominates the road ahead. Set high on a near-vertical slope, protected by tunnels and covered by interlocking machine-gun fire, it is ordered held to the last German. Repeated American assaults fail, and the regiment digs in while command searches for a new plan. At night the lines are so close that Murphy hears enemy voices in the dark. Burned out and emotionally spent, he avoids forming new friendships; he thinks only of keeping his remaining men alive.
The German’s fortified position at the Cleurie quarry controlled the region. Photo: Dogface soldiers
One gray morning the battalion commander and his executive officer visit the front to see what is stopping the advance. They select four men to guide them up the hillside. Restless and unable to sleep, Murphy grabs grenades and a carbine and follows.
As he rounds a boulder, two German grenades explode and a machine gun opens up. The ambush is poorly planned: the Germans strike the enlisted men first, giving the officers time to roll into a shallow depression. Concentrating on killing the officers, the attackers fail to guard their flank.
German prisoners of war file out of the quarry after their defeat. Photo: Dogface soldiers collection
Murphy steps out from behind a rock. The gunner swings his weapon toward him, but the barrel catches on a branch and the burst goes wide. Murphy throws a grenade and fires. Two Germans fall before the grenade even detonates. He tosses two more grenades, killing or disabling most of the ambushers. A squat German tries to flee, waddling downhill. Murphy hesitates—he looks absurd, almost comical—but the man is armed. Murphy fires and drops him.
Murphy safeties his carbine and turns to the battalion commander, who remains cool as the October morning. Brushing dirt from his uniform, the officer says, “Those grenades aren’t a bad idea. Next time I’ll bring my own.”
A howitzer crew in action. Photo: Dogface soldiers collection
“We pick up our wounded and start down the hill. A single feeling possesses me. It is one of complete and utter weariness.”
tradeswomn musings 