The football games were part of a sports program organized to occupy restless American and Canadian troops awaiting discharge. In August 1945, the U.S. Army had staged the “GI Olympics” in Nuremberg, with high-ranking Russian observers in attendance. Events included a baseball game played in the former Hitler Youth Stadium—an unmistakably symbolic reclaiming of Nazi space. That same day, news of Japan’s surrender crackled over the loudspeakers, unleashing a roar that seemed to lift the roof as GIs tossed caps, coats, and red-white-and-blue programs into the air, hugging, kissing, and celebrating the war’s end. The festivities continued into the night with performances by Hal McIntyre at the amphitheater and Bob Hope at the Opera House, drawing thousands of cheering troops in a city freshly transformed from fascist spectacle to victorious release.
Pretty sure Flo was rooting for the Third DivisionReserved for the brass.
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, 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 villageDivision formation, ReinhardshausenView from FurstenhofLt. Cols. Chaney and Rosson of Portland, C.C. and Exec. Kassel, GermanyMaj. Prever, Lt.Col. King, Col. McGarr, Lt. Col. Ramsey, Maj. Wickersham, 3rd Div. HQ staffStaff quarters. Flo with Col. McGarr (R)
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 WickParliamentTower of LondonTower of LondonSt. Paul’s CathedralThe wax museumGovernment 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.
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 ParisLondon welcomes the US Armed ForcesFrom 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.
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 SalzburgA 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
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 homeSalzburg 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.
On Soyal Native Americans marked the shortest day of the year
Cliff Palace in Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado. Photo by Judson McCranie. (CC BY-SA 3.0) It is believed that ancestors to the Hopi built and lived in Cliff Palace from about 1200 to 1300 C.E.
My Regular Pagan Holiday Post: Winter Solstice
My queer family chooses to forgo holidays shaped by a christian tradition steeped in homophobia and misogyny—a church that has long covered up sexual abuse against children and parishioners while scapegoating queer people. Recent comments by Pope Francis only underline this contradiction, reaffirming the catholic church’s ban on ordaining gay men and punishing and defrocking priests who question that policy or support what it calls “gay culture.”
So we create our own rituals instead—queer, chosen-family–centered traditions. We look to other cultures for inspiration, especially pagan and pre-christian practices that honor the natural world and community rather than dogma.
We can learn much from Native Americans that might help us through what is shaping up to be a particularly dark period in our history and present.
Soyal: Winter Solstice and Renewal
On the winter solstice, Hopi and Zuni peoples perform a ceremony with the intention of achieving unity and strengthening community. Soyal is held on the shortest day of the year. It marks the symbolic return of the sun, the turning of the seasonal wheel, and the beginning of a new spiritual cycle. Soyal is a time of purification, prayer, and renewal, when the community prepares itself—spiritually and socially—for the year ahead.
In the days before Soyal, families create pahos, prayer sticks made with feathers and plant fibers, which are used to bless homes, animals, fields, and the wider world. Sacred underground chambers, called kivas, are ritually opened to mark the beginning of the kachina season. The kachinas are understood as spiritual messengers who carry prayers for rain, health, balance, and right living. Songs, dances, offerings, and storytelling strengthen community bonds and pass ethical teachings from elders to children.
Soyal also dramatizes the struggle between darkness and light. Through symbolic dances and ritual objects, such as shields representing the sun and effigies symbolizing destructive forces, the community enacts the tension between chaos and order, drought and rain, winter and warmth. The message is not that darkness must be destroyed, but that it must be faced, respected, and brought back into balance.
The solstice itself becomes a sacred pause: a moment when time feels suspended and people are invited to examine their lives. It is a season for letting go of harmful habits, reconciling conflicts, offering forgiveness, and setting intentions rooted in responsibility rather than personal gain. Gifts are exchanged not as possessions, but as blessings and goodwill.
Creating Our Own Rituals
Soyal reminds us that human life is meant to move in natural cycles, not endless acceleration. Rest is not weakness; it is a form of wisdom. Renewal begins with humility, gratitude, and shared responsibility. Personal healing is inseparable from the health of the community and the land.
The enduring spiritual mission expressed through Soyal is the same across Hopi villages: to promote and achieve the unity of everything in the universe.
While that vast unity may be beyond our vision, we, too, seek to strengthen our community and mark the return of light. At winter solstice, we gather ourselves and our loved ones, shaping rituals that keep us connected to one another and to the slow turning of the year. We invite friends to help us trim our solstice tree, contribute to the local food bank, have neighbors over for hot chocolate, read poetry and stories aloud, bake cannabis edibles, host impromptu living room dance parties, cook savory soups, plant flower bulbs. With neighbors, we make signs and join street protests to raise our voices against fascism. We look for the sacred in everyday life.
After her death, in Flo’s jewelry box I found a bracelet made from a Combat Infantryman Badge. The badge is a U.S. Army decoration awarded to infantrymen and Special Forces soldiers, colonel rank and below, who fought in active ground combat after December, 1941. The same badge appears here on the dance invitation. I imagine it had been awarded to Flo’s fiancé, Gene Gustafson, and that she had it fashioned into a bracelet she could wear.
For almost ten weeks—from May 4 to July 13, 1945—the 3rd Division enjoyed a rare stretch of life without combat in and around Salzburg. To help soldiers shift from warfighting to occupation duty, the army quickly organized a full slate of sports and recreation. The Salzburg rodeo that Flo photographed was likely one of those morale-boosting events.
Clubmobiler Janet Potts, already an experienced equestrian with competition miles behind her, took part in the show. Even so, jumping with an unfamiliar horse must have been a challenge. And the horses themselves raise questions: where did they come from? Were they seized from a high-ranking Nazi officer? Whatever their origin, they were striking animals—well trained, elegant, and responsive. One photo even seems to show an American soldier riding a dressage horse, completing the unlikely tableau of a rodeo in postwar Salzburg.
tradeswomn musings 