Category: history

Evidence of Nazi War Crimes Mounts

Catching up with the Third Division

My Mother and Audie Murphy Ch. 31

September 8, 1944. After several days in the small town of Aix-en-Provence, the Red Cross crew drove north in an effort to catch up to the Third Division. They stopped in Grenoble where they stayed for a night in what Flo called, “a lovely hotel, taken by 7th Army.” She noted: “Boy from Ballard (A Seattle neighborhood) gave me cinnamon rolls.” She described Grenoble as “lovely and modern—very mountainous.”

From Flo’s album
From Flo’s diary

Flo also pasted on this page of her album a newspaper story quoting Sgt. Louis Roberts about Nazi brutality endured by the French. Sgt. Roberts must be a Yakima native. From the Yakima Herald:

Atrocities Are Reported

Sgt. Roberts Avers France Bled White

Sgt. Louis Roberts who has been staying recently with a French family, has thus been able to get a better understanding of condition in France than most of the Americans and has the added advantage of speaking the language.

“It is hard to fathom how Germany bled France of resources,” he says. “From one little sector each month the people had to send 13 ½ tons of shoes, 10,000 head of cattle, tons of butter, milk, wood and other things plus a monthly payment of five million francs. It is incredible how much a small region could ever supply so much. These people have been thrifty and economical enough to endure this war.

“Being deprived of food and clothing did not bother the French so much as the brutal measures the Germans took. Often children had to suffer the loss of limbs so parents would take pity on them and disclose vital information about the F.F.I. (French Forces of the Interior. The French resistance) One town north of here was taken by the F.F.I. The Germans warned the patriots that if one shot were fired after 11 o’clock they would retaliate. The warning was not heeded and the Germans retook the town and set all the houses afire along the main street.

“Numerous incidents are constantly told about how the Germans would shoot our wounded prisoners. Women would cover the bodies of dead aviators or allied soldiers with flowers which would be scattered by the Germans who were on guard. If some persons would linger over the body of one of our soldiers to pray they would be driven away at the point of bayonets.

“These French are very sorry, indeed, that all of us cannot understand the language. Each of them has some grewsome story to tell, not necessarily how they suffered but how the rest, or all of France, has to suffer. I have seen results of such brutality and I feel even more sorry for the French still in German territory. I could write a book on what I have heard and seen.

Yesterday I went to mass—a special mass for the liberation of the town. The church was beautifully decorated with numerous flags and stretched out up over the altar was a huge banner ‘Honor and Glory to the Americans.’ The choir and music were also beautiful. It was like Easter at home.”

Sgt. Roberts and Miss Florence Wick, Yakima Red Cross worker, are in the same town and see each other at times. He adds that “even though people are bombed out of their homes they are most happy to be liberated.”

Ch.32: https://mollymartin.blog/2025/06/09/catching-up-to-the-3rd-division/

The Red Cross Lands in France

In a letter home, Flo tells of arrival

My Mother and Audie Murphy ch. 29

Late August, 1944. Support staff, including the American Red Cross women, were required to wait till the end of August to follow the troops into Southern France. They sailed from Italy on the USS Joseph T. Dickman, the same ship that had carried many of the men, landing on the same beach near St. Tropez. The ARC women attached to the Third Infantry Division were the first to reach France.

They were billeted for a week in a small town, Aix-en-Provence, where they stayed in what Flo called “a quaint but comfortable hotel.” 

Aix-en-Provence. Pictures of the “quaint” hotel where they stayed, on right.

Flo’s letter home was published in the local Yakima newspaper:

Word From Florence Wick

Mrs. Gerda Wick, mother of Florence Wick, who is serving with the ARC in France has received a very interesting letter from her daughter. Florence writes:

“We came to France by boat. There were about 25 of us clubmobile girls, and we are waiting now in a lovely, quiet little southern French town until we can rejoin our various divisions. We landed in the same fashion as our troops had done previously, although, of course, we had the advantage of not being under fire.

“This part of southern France reminds me of Washington. There are fine trees and mountains and lovely valley gardens. The people are very nice, clean and polite. Their own soldiers are fighting as well as the civilians, and the spirit is wonderful.

“The war is moving so fast that we cannot keep up with it ourselves. When we can rejoin our units is unknown, but we miss them badly and want to get up there as soon as possible. Meanwhile, we are staying in a quaint but comfortable hotel, and enjoying white sheets and soft mattresses.

“The French can even make army K rations taste different, and their table service is wonderful. A separate plate for everything, and interesting sauces camouflaging our corned beef, Spam, etc. Their interior fighting forces, such as civilians underground, etc. have done a wonderful job and “fighting French” means just what it says.

Flo’s road map of France was put to good use by ARC clubmobilers

“The fruit here is very good—all varieties of melons, excellent tomatoes which they can fix a dozen different ways, and grapes.

“The thing that makes these French towns so different from ours is the complete lack of frame buildings. Everything is stone or stucco with tile roofs. That was true in Italy also. France is unbelievably clean and peaceful looking. There are, of course, smashed buildings, burned up and overturned Jerry equipment and shells lying around here and there to remind one of war, but they don’t seem real, somehow.

“The clubmobile girls were the first ARC girls in France and we are quite thrilled by it all particularly as there are hundreds who want to get over here and must stay on in Italy for a time.

“Please greet everyone for me.”

Ch.30: https://mollymartin.blog/2025/05/30/mortar-attack/

Nazis Trapped at Montelimar

Dead and Dying Include Hundreds of Horses

My Mother and Audie Murphy Ch. 28

Late August, 1944. From Murphy’s autobiography To Hell and Back:

Smarting under the wrongs and indignities endured during the years of German occupation, members of the French underground emerge from hiding and strike. Entire towns are already liberated by the FFI—the French Forces of the Interior—waiting only for the Americans to arrive. The Maquis join the advancing troops as guides, offering information on enemy strongholds and hidden defenses.

Advancing on Montelimar. Photo: Dogface soldiers collection

The German dead lie buried in abandoned foxholes, hastily covered with the same soil they once held in captivity. When it rains, their boots stick grotesquely from the mud.

Meanwhile, the Third Army drives relentlessly across middle France. When contact is made, the Germans in a vast section of the country will be caught in a trap. For three days the Americans move forward in trucks, meeting only scattered resistance—roadblocks, ambushes, and small pockets of determined defenders. After the slow, grinding months in Italy, this rapid advance feels almost unreal.

The men are exhilarated. Nothing lifts a soldier’s morale like progress. They have long believed that the only road home lies through the Siegfried Line, and every mile up the Rhône Valley feels like another mile closer to America.

The Germans react unpredictably. In one place, twenty thousand surrender to a single American platoon. In another, a few dozen fight with desperate ferocity, clawing for every inch of ground.

Wreckage of the German retreat. Photo: Dogface soldiers collection

By August 23, 1944, the swift, circling maneuvers of divisional units have trapped a large enemy force at Montélimar, a key communications hub. The Germans would gladly abandon the town if only they could escape north. As the American ring closes around them, they counterattack fiercely—an entire regiment hurling itself against Murphy’s battalion. Artillery and mortar fire break the assault, holding the line amid smoke and shattered trees.

On the outskirts of Montélimar, a massive German convoy is caught by American guns. In their panic to flee, the vehicles jam the road two and three abreast. Artillery zeroes in, and the destruction defies belief.

Hundreds of horses, evidently stolen from French farmers, lie among the wreckage. They stand or fall with torn flesh, gazing at the soldiers with unblinking, bewildered eyes, whinnying softly as life drains from them. The men, hardened by years of battle, find themselves strangely shaken. They are used to the sight of dead and wounded men, but these suffering animals stir something deeper, a sorrow for innocence trapped in the machinery of war.

Horses were among the dead. Photo: Dogface soldiers collection

One of Murphy’s men, a Texan, gently approaches a horse and shoots him behind the ear.

“I’ve known horses all my life,” he says, “and there’s not one dirty, mean thing about them. They’re too decent to blast each other’s guts out like we’re doing. Makes you ashamed to belong to the human race.”

Ch.29: https://mollymartin.blog/2025/05/25/red-cross-lands-in-france/

Flo and Her Crew Sail to France

She reunites with her fiance Gene on Red Beach

My Mother and Audie Murphy Ch. 27

August 26-30, 1944

Finally, the time had come for the American Red Cross workers to follow the boys to France. Flo wrote in her diary:

Saturday, August 26, “Leaving for France with other clubmobile gals on Liberty tomorrow. Finished packing, changing money, sending home packages. No mail yet.”

Flo’s diary

Sunday, August 27

“3 mos. In Italy. Came aboard Jos. T. Dickman APA enroute to France with 25 clubmobile gals. Have one comp. on C deck together. Good food. Dance on top deck with phon.”

August 28

“On board ship. Fun with Lt. Scharff. Dancing in moonlight on deck. Very hot in compartment.”

USS Joseph T. Dickman

August 29

“Still on ship—last day. No dance while at sea. Spent time with Lt. Scharff.”

(I don’t know who Lt. Scharff was. Flo did correspond with friends after the war, but there’s no indication she ever saw or corresponded with Lt. Scharff again.)

Wednesday August 30

Up at 5:00 a.m. for breakfast, but left ship after 8 o’clock. Landed on beach where 3rd made assault. Many ships in convoy. 36th E on beach; found Gene & saw Co. G. Wonderful to see him. Drove to Aix (Aix-en-Provence) with R.C. man & Dottie late in afternoon. Stayed at Thermes Hotel. Quaint place.

August 31

Cannot go up with Div. yet. Will be staying in Aix for a while and working in office. No work today, tho. Walked around town—very nice place—people clean and shops interesting. Prices high. No vehicles as yet. Miss Gene.

Sunday September 3

Down to Red Beach to see about car. Saw Gene.

September 4

With 36 E

36 E is the 36th Engineers, Flo’s fiancé, Gene’s unit. 

Ch. 28: https://mollymartin.blog/?p=4065

A Demon Enters My Body

His best friend dies: Murph loses his cool

Ch. 26 My Mother and Audie Murphy

D-Day in Southern France. August 15, 1944

They jump from the landing craft and wade through the swirling surf. From the hills above, German guns begin to crack. Shells burst among them. Medics move instantly, sleeves rolled, already tending to the fallen.

An explosion erupts on the left. When the smoke clears, the remains of a soldier lie scattered—he has stepped on a mine. A medic kneels beside him briefly, then signals to the litter bearers that there is nothing to carry.

Ahead lies a strip of scrub and tangled grass. The men advance toward it with cautious, deliberate steps, as though walking on eggshells. The entire beach is mined, every footstep a gamble.

Landing at Red Beach. Photo: Dogface soldiers collection

They reach the edge of a green meadow. Beyond it stretch vineyards and scattered farmhouses, each one potentially harboring an unseen gun crew. Murphy drops into a drainage ditch and pushes forward, mud sucking at his boots as he moves.

They kill two Germans and capture six.

The thin shell of resistance at the beachhead collapses quickly, and the company advances inland. Three wooded hills rise to their right. From the center hill, a concrete pillbox juts outward, its cannon angled toward the beach. Intelligence marks this hill as a major strongpoint, and Murphy’s company receives the order to neutralize it.

Under a punishing sun, the men climb in sweat-soaked uniforms. Murphy’s platoon leads, and he brings up the rear. Suddenly automatic fire sweeps down from the hill.

Murphy’s two comrades are killed. He is alone and the Germans have discovered his position.

Then Murphy engages in acts of heroism that earn him one of his many medals. He duels with the enemy until his ammunition is exhausted. Then he seizes a machine gun and rakes the foxholes. Still under fire, he is joined by a comrade, his best buddy in the squad.

The surviving Germans wave a white cloth in surrender. Murphy’s friend rises casually from cover, believing the danger has passed. A hidden machine gun opens at once. He topples backward into the hole, barely whispering Murphy’s name before dying. Murphy freezes in shock, caught between the bodies of his friend and the Germans he has killed.

He checks for a pulse. There is none. He calls for medics, but the hill roars with gunfire. No one can reach him.

Grief and disbelief overwhelm him. He refuses to accept the death. With quiet, deliberate care, he lifts his friend from the hole and lays him beneath a cork tree, as though fresh air alone might restore life. How he avoids being shot while doing this remains inexplicable.

Map of the invasion. Photo: NARA

A machine gun shifts toward him. Murphy reacts instantly, diving back into the hole, throwing a grenade, and then rushing forward. The grenade has done its work. Both German gunners are dead. Murphy takes their weapon, checks it, and begins climbing the hill again.

He wrote: “I remember the experience as I do a nightmare. A demon seems to have entered my body. My brain is coldly alert and logical. I do not think of the danger to myself. My whole being is concentrated on killing. Later the men pinned down in the vineyard tell me that I shout pleas and curses at them because they do not come up and join me.”

He reaches the gun crew responsible and kills them before they even know he is there. He keeps firing until their bodies stop moving.

Resistance on the hill collapses. The company advances and reorganizes on the crest. Murphy stands apart, trembling, stunned by the sudden weakness that overtakes him. When the company moves on, he returns alone to his friend’s body.

He gathers his personal effects, looks once more at the photograph of the little girl with pigtails, then places the pack beneath his friend’s head like a pillow. He sits beside him and weeps without restraint.

As time passes, the rage drains away. The enemy becomes again simply the enemy—not monsters, not personal. The war resumes its relentless form: a series of brutal tasks carried out by flesh and will. Murphy accepts this, as he has every day since the war began.

And he rises, wipes his face, and walks back over the hill to rejoin the company.

Quotes are from From Murphy’s autobiography To Hell and Back

Ch. 27: https://mollymartin.blog/2025/05/15/flo-and-her-crew-sail-to-france/

Ready to Leave Poor Italy

In a letter home, Flo writes of the strain of waiting

My Mother and Audie Murphy Ch. 25

August 24, 1944. “We are in the process of waiting right now and it is very much of a strain, particularly since “our boys” are fighting and we worry so much about them. War is hell when you “sweat out” an invasion and it becomes pretty grim when you hear that someone you knew well and liked a great deal has been wounded or killed. We hope to be with them before too long. 

“I have just started to comprehend Italian and will soon have to struggle with French, but I’m sure I’ll like it much better.

“I’ve gained at least 5 pounds, I am nut brown from outdoor life and feel excellent. The last two days I’ve had a sore throat and am now horse as a crow, but fine otherwise. 

“Paris fell last evening. No word from Gene,” wrote Flo in her diary August 23.

“My “Love life” is taking time off, too, as the boyfriend is having a little argument with the Jerries right now. I hope he will “come back” but there is always the tragic possibility that he won’t, along with hundreds of others. 

“The war advances are encouraging, though to us, not as encouraging as to the folks back home. I am afraid it will still be quite some time, but about that no one can tell for sure.

“It is as hot here as it must be at home in August. We didn’t mind it when we were in the country, but in the city it is very enervating and we notice it considerably. 

“I love my job and I am fond of my coworkers, so I’ve never been sorry I came over. In fact, I feel as if I’ve really been doing something. 

“Waiting around is hard, but we have even a bigger job ahead of us, as well as new scenes and new adventures.

“I will be just as glad to leave Italy – it has been fun here, but the people are very disillusioning– their whole standard of living is so far, far below what I expected and they seem to have no leaders, no particular ambition or initiative. Like much of Europe now, it is dirty and poor. We have very little to do with the natives and I am more often pitying them than not, but that is wearing. The poor children – there is no health standard and very little good food – the next generation will really suffer. 

“Ruth (her sister), If you get a chance, please tell Mom to send me some combs – long ones. They have nothing but cheap short ones in the PX here and I’m destitute. Some Italian stole my two pair of dress shoes, so I’m completely dependent on those horrible black oxfords. Only one package has reached me from home as yet.” 

Ch. 26: https://mollymartin.blog/2025/05/12/3rd-divisions-first-day-in-france/

Operation Dragoon: The Landing

Audie Murphy recalled landing on French soil

My Mother and Audie Murphy Ch. 24

August 15, 1944. From Murphy’s autobiography To Hell and Back:

Audie Murphy later described the landing in southern France in his autobiography To Hell and Back. He recalled that, technically, the operation was considered perfect. The assault had been calculated to the smallest detail, every movement coordinated so that the effort unfolded with the smooth precision of a machine.

Compared to earlier invasions, resistance here was light. Weeks before, Allied forces had already broken out of Normandy and were cutting through northern France like a flood bursting through a levee. On the eastern front, the Russians were hammering the German armies. Overhead, American bombers were grinding German cities to rubble. Murphy likened Germany’s situation to that of a man hiding in a stolen house, frantically running between front and back doors as justice pounded from both sides—only to realize too late that another force was now rising up through the cellar. His regiment, Murphy observed, was that third force.

Landing craft on D-Day August 15. More than 90,000 amphibious and 9,000 airborne troops participated in the initial two-day southern France landings. Photo: NARA

Yet the men in the landing craft knew nothing of this sweeping strategic picture. They saw only the edge of the boat, the immediate shoreline, and the moment that lay before them. Their first objective was a narrow, harmless-looking strip of sand called “Yellow Beach.” It was early morning in mid-August; a thin mist hovered above the flat fields beyond the shore, and beyond that, quiet green hills rose inland.

Photo: Dogface soldiers collection

The bay between St. Tropez and Cavalaire was crowded with the familiar pattern of an amphibious assault. Battleships had already given the coastline a thorough pounding and now drifted silently in the background. Rocket craft followed, launching volleys that hissed through the air like schools of strange metallic fish, exploding mines and shredding barbed wire while rattling the nerves of the Germans waiting on shore.

Photo: Dogface soldiers collection

Under this barrage, scores of landing boats churned forward. Murphy stood in one of them, gripped again by that old, stomach-knotting fear that always came before action. Around him, his men crouched like miserable, soaked cats. Some were seasick; others sat glassy-eyed, lost in the kind of inward withdrawal that came just before battle.

And then, in the midst of dread, Murphy felt the absurdity of the moment. Here they were—small, cold, wet men—thrust into a riddle vast as the sky. He laughed, as he often did when confronted with the enormity of life and death.

Photo: Dogface soldiers collection

As the boats drew nearer, Murphy tried to rally his men by urging them to sing. They weren’t interested. But singing had long been a way soldiers kept fear in check, anger in rhythm, and marching in step. The Third Division even had its own song—Dogface Soldier—written in 1942 by two of its own, Sgt. Bert Gold and Lt. Ken Hart, both from Long Beach, New York. The division commander, Lucian Truscott, liked it so much he made it official. Third Division soldiers sang it, marched to it, and danced to it.

Years later, in 1955, when Murphy played himself in the film To Hell and Back, the song made its public debut. It became one of the most well-known songs of the war, celebrating not heroes of legend, but the ordinary infantryman—the “dogface” soldier who carried the rifle, slogged the mud, and shouldered the daily weight of the war.

The lyrics—simple, proud, and rough-edged—captured exactly who they were:

I Wouldn’t Give A Bean
To Be A Fancy Pants Marine
I’d Rather Be A
Dog Face Soldier Like I Am

I Wouldn’t Trade My Old OD’s
For All The Navy’s Dungarees
For I’m The Walking Pride
Of Uncle Sam

On Army Posters That I Read
It Says “Be All That You Can”
So They’re Tearing Me Down
To Build Me Over Again

I’m just a Dogface Soldier, 
With a rifle on my shoulder, 
And I eat a Kraut for breakfast every day. 

So Feed Me Ammunition
Keep Me In the Third Division
Your DogFace Soldier’s A-Okay

Ch. 25: https://mollymartin.blog/2025/05/07/ready-to-leave-poor-italy/

On Leave: Sorrento and Capri

My Mother and Audie Murphy Ch. 23

After Goodbyes, Four Days of Bliss

August 1944 was a month of waiting. The men Flo and her friends had waved off were now at sea, sailing toward the battlefields of Southern France. Their D-Day, scheduled for August 15, loomed heavy in the minds of the Red Cross women left behind. It might be weeks, they were warned, before the coast was clear enough for them to follow. On August 8, the women moved from the camp at Pozzuoli to a residence next to headquarters in Naples.

After days of stifling heat and restless worry in Naples, the women were granted leave. Flo, Dottie, and Isabella fled to Sorrento, trading the grit and noise of the city for something closer to paradise. Flo captured it all in a letter home:

A page from Flo’s album. Which one of these guys is the cute French officer? She didn’t save the letters that were in the envelopes. What did he write? Pinch out to look more closely.

“We have been resting for several days and spent four wonderful days at Sorrento in a lovely old hotel, which is now an officers rest camp. It was peaceful and lovely down there after the hot, noisy, dirty city and seemed like a different world. We were in bathing suits and shorts most of the time, swimming and sailing. They not only have white sails on the boats, but red, Blue and terra-cotta. It is a picturesque site – the sailboats skimming along on that blue, blue water with veri-colored sails. 

In her diary Flo wrote about her flirtation with a cute French officer in Sorrento. She called him a “very romantic boy.”

“Italy has its good points and they are nearly all scenery. We took the one-day boat excursion trip to Capri and it is as romantic and lovely as all the songs and posters say. It is out of this world and is surrounded by the clearest, bluest water I’ve seen. The island itself is quaint– abounding in all kinds of flowers, trees, lovely shrines and cathedrals, which date back to the 15th century. 

“To make my few vacation days even more unusual and romantic, I met a cute French officer, who made a big hit with all – male and female – staying at the hotel. He spoke a very few words of English and I no French, but we got along beautifully and I took a great deal of kidding about it. Even in his broken English, he was quite a smoothie, and so sincere about it all. They are such sentimentalists, but confidentially I prefer them to the English.” 

Flo wrote about their trip to Sorrento and Capri in her diary

They sailed to Capri, where the sea was so blue it looked unreal, and the hillsides spilled over with flowers and ancient shrines. Flo met a young French officer, charming even in broken English, and spent a day with him swimming, sailing, and dancing under the southern sun.

In her diary, she noted the date — August 15 — and scribbled the words: “Hope 3rd Div. okey.” She took a drive along the Amalfi coast, marveling at the villages clinging to cliffs above the sea. For a moment, the war felt far away, almost unreal.

But when the four days ended, reality closed back around them. Returning to Naples, Flo and the others slipped once more into the long, anxious business of waiting — and worrying about the boys they had left behind. She wrote in her diary, “May be here for another two weeks. Invasion going well, but worry about boys and especially Gene. Hope he escapes.”

Ch. 24: https://mollymartin.blog/2025/05/02/operation-dragoon-the-landing/

Goodbye to the Boys

Chapter 22: My Mother and Audie Murphy

August, 1944. Operation Dragoon—the Allied invasion of Southern France—had been debated for months. Originally, it was supposed to launch alongside the more famous Operation Overlord, the Normandy invasion on June 6, 1944. But the top brass couldn’t agree. Resources were stretched thin, and priorities clashed. Was it wise to open a second front in France? Could they even pull it off?

Part of the Operation Dragoon invasion fleet anchored off Naples. Photo: NARA

Meanwhile, thousands of young men trained on the sunbaked beaches near Naples, waiting for orders that never seemed to come. Tension hung heavy in the air. They practiced amphibious landings again and again, sand grinding into their boots and rifles, minds on the fight ahead—or trying not to think about it at all.

By August, the go-ahead finally came. Operation Dragoon would launch on August 15, with landings near St. Tropez. The plan: storm the beaches, push inland, liberate Marseille, and link up with the northern forces. It would be a massive undertaking, one that might finally break the German grip on Southern France.

In the ports around Naples, everything sprang into motion. Soldiers, tanks, trucks, jeeps, crates of ammunition and rations—all were loaded onto the towering LSTs (Landing Ship, Tank). The docks were a blur of noise and movement. Beneath the logistical precision, though, was something quieter, more personal: goodbye.

Loading the LSTs

The Red Cross women were there, as they always were—on the edges of history, offering comfort, coffee, and smiles to boys about to disappear into war.

On Monday, August 7, Flo wrote in her diary:  

“Served 3rd Div. leaving from Baia. Said goodbye to Stonie, Rick & Miles & part of 36E. Last date with Gene. Went to beach. Hated to say goodbye. Love him in spite of resolve.” 

The day before, Flo had written in her diary, “Decided I want to marry Gene.” He was now her fiancé, and they were parting ways, perhaps for the last time.

The next day, August 8, she wrote:  

“On beach at Nisida. Mostly Infantry—7th & 30th. Saw Gus, Buzz and all the rest of 1st Bn. Hot & dirty. Worked from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.”  

What a gigantic operation! Photo: NARA

Twelve-hour shifts, in the heat and dust, trying to give each man a sense that someone saw him, that someone cared. How do you say goodbye to that many young men, most of them barely more than boys? How do you smile through it, knowing many might never come back?

When the last ships pulled out, the docks were quiet. The women packed up their things, broke camp, and moved into Naples near headquarters. Flo wrote:  

“Much baggage. Helped 45th girls at Pozzuoli. Also 36th Div. leaving there. Very hot, busy and tired. LST ensign gave me dozen eggs. Exhausted after days of saying goodbye to thousands of boys en route for invasion.”  

Photo: NARA

Now they waited. The invasion was set for August 15. First, the troops would land. Then they’d have to fight their way inland, clear the Germans, secure the roads. Only then would Flo and the other ARC staff be allowed to follow, to bring comfort once again to the weary, wounded, and grieving.

In the silence of the following days, Flo thought of Gene. And of Stonie, Rick, and Miles. And of the thousands of names she never knew—just faces, voices, laughter fading down the gangplank.

Ch. 23: https://mollymartin.blog/2025/04/27/on-leave-sorrento-and-capri/

She Liked Opera, They Liked Jazz

A decade older than the boys, Flo became a mother figure

Summer, 1944. My Mother and Audie Murphy Ch. 21

The soldiers were young—just boys, really—and by the end of that summer of 1944 at the training camp in Pozzuoli, they had become “her” boys. In the relative calm of the camp, Flo had served thousands of troops, gotten to know hundreds, and formed real friendships with many of them.

She and her clubmobile crew made regular visits to the army units, offering coffee, donuts, and a brief escape from the war. The women were allowed to join the men in some of their tasks—driving the amphibious DUKW boats, using the mine sweep, traveling to training areas, watching mock battles. Flo kept photos in her album—snapshots of the women posing with soldiers on tanks, jeeps, and trucks—memories of lighter moments amid the looming darkness. 

Flo and Dottie posing with 442nd Ack Ack

To the young men, she became a maternal figure. At 30, Flo was a decade or more older than most of the infantrymen who would soon be fighting on the front lines. There was a natural generational divide—she had grown up with opera and classical music; they preferred jazz. She danced the waltz. They wanted to jitterbug.

Dottie learns to use the mine detector
Flo and Dottie at Gaeta mine training

Still, there was deep mutual respect. She told me often how much she cared for them, how proud she was of them—and how worried she became as the next invasion loomed. She feared many of them wouldn’t come back.

Isabella and Liz with musicians
Flo with B Co. 10th Engineers

She always emphasized how respectful the soldiers were. Of course, they were under strict military discipline, and they lived with the constant awareness that any day could be their last. That shaped their behavior, certainly—but so did the bond they shared with her.

Photogrphers unknown, but probably 3rd Signal Co.

Ch. 22: https://mollymartin.blog/2025/04/21/goodbye-to-the-boys/