The war was moving north fast, and the Red Cross personnel had to move fast to catch up. Isabella and Dottie had stayed in Marseilles, so Flo and Liz were on their own. They snagged a car, driving from Aix-en-Provence to Grenoble, and on to the QM area near Quingey, just south of the town of Besançon. Flo wrote, “Should not have come up, but Bill let us stay.”
I think she is saying they are too close to the front lines. Bill is probably Bill Shay, whose photo is pasted in the album titled Bill Shay ARC, maybe their boss. In letters and interviews, the clubmobilers complained that their ARC bosses were of little help. The women were generally tasked with figuring things out on their own.
Bill Shay ARC
Flo also noted, “Moved same evening to area beyond town. Liz and Bill came late, so slept in Major Goodwin’s bedroll.”
That might be the theme of Liz’s drawing.
Liz’s drawings of clubmobile life are pasted throughout Flo’s album
The next day, Sept. 10, Flo wrote, “Shopped in Quingey for pans to cook for boys. Saw 36th Div. gals. Slept under trailer tarp. Very comfortable. Cooked for donut crew.”
On Monday, Sept. 11 she wrote: “Moved near Besançon. Put up pyramidal tent (full of holes). Saw Frank Gates.”
(Gates is the ARC man who took them to Rome on the amphib jeep June 5. That seems to long ago!)
“(Gates) didn’t like our being around. Liz and I spent night under tarp with (donut making) machines. Made hot choc. For us all.
Flo’s diary
Sept. 12, Flo wrote, “Slept in tent on our German stretchers. Ord. gave us two cars—sedan & Ger. Jeep. Saw 36th E in town…” She doesn’t mention that she saw her fiance, Gene, who was with the 36th Engineers.
Sept. 13. Raining. “Spent wet night. Had fried chicken. Very good. Liz is KP & Flo is mess sgt.”
Sept. 14. “Frank Gates says Maj. Basilla wants us to get out, so we moved up to 6th Corps artillery unit.”
It seems like this means that Major Basilla was kicking them out of the Third Division. Some of the commanding officers were opposed to having the clubmobilers near the army. Gen. Mark Clark had been their advocate and protector in the beginning, but he was no longer there.
She wrote: “Spent night in French summer home. Wonderful beds. Both of us blue & orphans.”
Friday, Sept. 15 Flo wrote, “Left for Vesoul w/6th Corps artillery. Moved into small inn in Villers de Sac with Liz. Wonderful beds & kitchen to cook meals in. Fun. Drove down to QM in Ger. Jeep.
Sept. 16. “Cooking for 6th Corps donut gang. Madame Susan good to us. Fried 3 chickens & cut ‘em up myself. 11 for dinner. Danced in inn to phono. Raining hard.”
Liz and Flo plucking French chickens
Flo was very proud of herself for cutting up chicken and cooking meals. She had never been a cook. At home, she had worked at a job and her mother had done all the cooking. From the notes in her diary, it seems like she was getting in to her domestic side.
Beards and Bushes and Leg Hair Inspired by a photo of Cathy Cade.
It was 1967, and I was a freshman at Washington State University, living in the dorms—tiny rooms where two people shared a space roughly the size of a generous closet. Once you pulled the beds out from the wall, you had about six inches of precious real estate between them. Cozy!
The bathrooms were shared among all the women on the floor. There was a communal bathtub where I’d perch, shaving my legs with a double-edged razor and a bar of soap. I hated it. I hated the shaving, I hated the blood, the injuries, the boxes of band aids needed for cuts. I’m pretty sure I clogged the drain more than once.
This was before the feminist movement really revved up, but some baby rebel deep inside me was already stretching her hairy legs. I decided to stop shaving. In fact, I committed to it scientifically—I posted a chart on the door of my dorm room and recorded the weekly growth of my leg hair.
What did my floormates think? I imagine they thought I was completely out of my mind. No one said much of anything, which either means they were too stunned to speak or too polite to comment on the inch-long leg hair I proudly tracked like it was a science fair project. Either way, I felt free. No more razors. No more blood. No more pretending to be a hairless woodland creature.
Later, in a collective house with three other dykes, we turned body hair into a competitive sport. Who had the hairiest legs and the most luxuriant bush? Our favorite outfit was just a vest. That’s it. No pants. No shirt. Just full-frontal follicular glory. Sadly, despite my natural abundance, I was not the hairiest. Mahaney’s glorious blond leg hair made her look like she was wearing angora leggings.
Years later, in another act of feminist rebellion, I ditched the bra. My breasts are ample and gravity is real, but so is back pain. Bras hurt my shoulders, and every one I tried felt like medieval armor built by men who’d never met an actual woman. At first, going braless felt like I was walking around topless at a PTA meeting. But eventually, I got used to the freedom—and the bouncing and the sweaty undertits.
Then recently, inspired by a New York Times obituary photo of the celebrated bearded dyke photographer Cathy Cade, I decided: it’s beard time. I’d never grown one before, though I’d thought about it. My chin hair was never cute, but now that it’s gone gray, it’s looking rather distinguished. Professor Dumbledore meets anarchist grandma.
I asked my wife what she thought. Her response—paraphrased for the sake of civility—was essentially: “If you grow a beard, I will disown you, move to another state, and possibly enter witness protection.” She was not a fan.
But of course, that only made me want it more.
Now it’s grown in, and it’s introduced me to a whole new world. It came in at odd angles, curly, wiry, determined to defy gravity. One side’s a little fuller than the other, probably because I got electrolysis in the ’90s when I still cared what strangers thought. Regrets? Maybe. I could have had a resplendent full beard by now.
Still, I love playing with it. I twirl it, stroke it, and now completely understand why men do that—it’s like a built-in fidget toy. Plus, it moves in the wind. My chin hair dances! Who knew?
So far I’ve gotten no positive reactions to my beard. I thought men might appreciate it, so I asked two old man friends for their opinions. One said, “Cut it off.” The other said, “Trim it.” Translation: “We hate it.”
The best, most diplomatic, reaction I’ve gotten was, “It’s not something I would choose.” Ouch. One woman told me, “I pluck mine.” Been there. Plucking is a full-time job, and I’m on permanent vacation.
Then at an Old Lesbians retreat I met another bearded woman. A sister! She has been rocking facial hair for years. I asked what bosses and parents thought. She said her family had taken it in stride. Her mother didn’t mind the beard, but she insisted my friend wear a bra when she visited back home. Her boss at a medical facility had been a gay leather man who’d protected her from the higher ups.
There’s this fantastic TikTok group started by a Black woman for menopausal and post-menopausal women—listing all the things we no longer give a damn about: bras, makeup, body hair, expectations, decorum, patriarchy. I’m joining. I might even get the vest out again.
Summer (and Winter) Solstice will be June 20, 2025
For years, these pagan holiday letters have followed the rhythm of the Northern Hemisphere. So it’s about time we turned our gaze south. What is the summer solstice for us in the north is, of course, the winter solstice down under.
In Aotearoa (the Māori name for New Zealand, often translated as “Land of the Long White Cloud”), the winter solstice is marked by Matariki, a celebration that signals the Māori New Year. In 2022, Matariki was officially recognized as New Zealand’s first indigenous national holiday — a milestone in honoring the traditions of the land’s first people.
Rooted in ancient Māori astronomy and storytelling, Matariki revolves around the reappearance of a small but powerful star cluster in the early morning sky — known in Māori as Matariki, and in Western astronomy as the Pleiades or the Seven Sisters. Its rising marks a time of renewal, remembrance, and reconnection — with ancestors, the earth, and each other.
The date of Matariki shifts slightly each year, determined by both the lunar calendar and careful observation of the stars. Māori astronomers and iwi (tribal) experts consult mātauranga Māori — traditional Māori knowledge systems — to ensure the timing reflects ancestral wisdom. In precolonial times, the clarity and brightness of each star helped forecast the year’s weather, harvest, and overall wellbeing.
Unlike the linear passage of time in the Gregorian calendar, Māori time is circular — woven from moon phases, tides, seasons, and stars. Matariki is not just a new year, but a return point. A moment to pause, reflect on what has been, and plan how to move forward in harmony with the natural world.
At the heart of Matariki is kaitiakitanga — the ethic of guardianship. It’s the understanding that humans are not owners of the earth, but caretakers. We are part of the land, sea, and sky, and we carry the responsibility to protect and sustain them.
When Matariki rises just before dawn, it opens a space for both grief and celebration: to mourn those who’ve passed, give thanks for what we have, and set intentions for the year ahead. It reminds us of the interconnectedness of whānau(family), whakapapa (genealogy), and whenua (land).
The name Matariki is often translated as “the eyes of the chief,” from mata (eyes) and ariki (chief). According to one well-known Māori legend, the stars are the eyes of Tāwhirimātea, the god of winds and weather. In grief over the separation of his parents — Ranginui (Sky Father) and Papatūānuku (Earth Mother) — Tāwhirimātea tore out his own eyes and cast them into the heavens.
In a world that often values speed over stillness, Matariki offers a different rhythm. It’s a celestial breath — a reminder that time moves in cycles. That rest and reflection are just as important as action. That the sky still holds stories if we remember to look up.
The 9 Stars of Matariki
Each star in the Matariki cluster has its own role and significance:
Matariki – Health and wellbeing
Tupuānuku – Food from the earth
Tupuārangi – Food from the sky (birds, fruits)
Waitī – Freshwater and the life within it
Waitā – The ocean and saltwater life
Waipuna-ā-Rangi – Rain and weather patterns
Ururangi – Winds and the atmosphere
Pōhutukawa – Remembrance of those who have passed
Hiwa-i-te-Rangi – Aspirations, goals, and wishes for the future
For Māori, these stars are not just celestial objects — they are guardians. They watch over the land, sea, and sky, and in doing so, remind us of our responsibility to them.
As global conversations about climate change and sustainability grow more urgent, the values of Matariki — care, reverence, reflection, and renewal — feel especially resonant. It’s a time to return to what matters, to honor the past, and to move forward in a way that honors both our roots and our shared future on this earth.
North Bay Rising
In Santa Rosa and across the North Bay, we’re mad as hell—and we’ve taken to the streets. From the Hands Off! protest in April that brought 5,000 people to downtown Santa Rosa, to thousands more mobilizing in surrounding towns, resistance to the rise of fascism in the U.S. is fierce and growing.
Some of the signs from our protests
Here in Sonoma County, protests are a near-daily occurrence. Demonstrators are targeting a wide range of issues: U.S. complicity in the genocide of Palestinians, Avelo Airline’s role in deportation flights, Elon Musk’s attacks on federal institutions like Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid, the gutting of the Veterans Administration, the criminalization of immigrants, assaults on free speech, and—by us tradeswomen—the dismantling of affirmative action and DEI initiatives.
The Palestinian community and its allies have been gathering every Sunday at the Santa Rosa town square since October 2023.
Weekly actions include:
Thursdays: We the People protest in Petaluma.
Fridays: Veteran-focused rallies protesting VA budget cuts.
Saturdays: Tesla Takedown at the Santa Rosa showroom, and a vigil for Palestine in Petaluma.
Sundays: Protest at the Santa Rosa Airport against Avelo Airlines, and a Stand with Palestine demonstration in town.
Tuesdays: Resist and Reform in Sebastopol.
Ongoing: In Cotati, a weekly Resist Fascism picket line.
In Sonoma Plaza, there’s a weekly vigil to resist Trump. Sebastopol hosts a Gaza solidarity vigil, along with Sitting for Survival, an environmental justice action.
Beyond the regular schedule, spontaneous and planned actions continue:
A march to raise awareness of missing and murdered Indigenous women.
In Windsor, women-led organizing for immigrant rights.
A multi-faith rally at the town square on April 16.
Protest musicians and singers are coming together to strengthen the movement with art.
Trump’s goons are jailing citizens, and fear runs deep, especially among the undocumented and documented Latinx population—who make up roughly a third of Santa Rosa. But fear hasn’t silenced them. They continue to show up and speak out.
I’ve joined the North Bay Rapid Response Network, which mobilizes to defend our immigrant neighbors from ICE raids.
Meanwhile, our school systems are in crisis. Sonoma State University is slashing classes and programs in the name of austerity. Students and faculty are fighting back with protests, including a Gaza sit-in that nearly resulted in a breakthrough agreement with the administration.
Between all this, Holly and I made it to the Santa Rosa Rose Parade. The high school bands looked and sounded great—spirited and proud. Then, our Gay Day here on May 31, while clouded by conflict about participation by cops, still celebrated us queers.
And soon, I’ll hit the road heading to Yellowstone with a friend. On June 14, we’ll join protesting park rangers in Jackson, Wyoming as part of the No Kings! national day of action—a protest coordinated by Indivisible and partners taking place in hundreds of cities across the country.
On the Solstice, June 20 in the Northern Hemisphere, we expect to be in Winnemucca, Nevada, on the way home.
September 5, 1944. From Murphy’s autobiography To Hell and Back:
In a short while they are back in the thick of battle. The forward units knife through German lines, leaving pockets of resistance for the mopping-up crews. The noise of combat rises from every direction.
The swift advance has drained their energy and their supplies. Hungry and exhausted, they collapse along a roadside to wait for orders. Artillery thunders over their heads. They lie on their backs, listening to the shells crash forward into the hills.
Murphy and his crew seize an opportunity when a German supply truck rattles into view. They ambush it and find it loaded with bread and cognac. For a brief, stolen moment they eat, drink, and sing, the battle seeming almost far away.
The town of Besancon from its citadel. You can see the bombed bridges.Photo: Dogface soldiers.org
That night they crash into Besançon and fight until morning. Within a few days the city is secured, and once again the pursuit of the retreating Germans begins.
Murphy’s platoon brings up the rear when a roadblock stops the company. Mortar shells begin peppering the earth. Murphy pauses to speak to a small group of soldiers, several of them nervously pale replacements, waiting for the fire to ease.
Nearly killed by a mortar shell
A mortar shell drops in almost without sound. It is practically under Murphy’s boots before he registers its arrival. He has just enough time to think, This is it, before the blast knocks him unconscious.
When he comes to, he is sitting beside a crater with the shattered remains of a carbine in his hands. His head throbs, his eyes burn, and he cannot hear. The acrid, greasy taste of burned powder coats his tongue.
FFI fighters. Photo: NARA
He runs his hands down his legs, methodically checking. Both limbs are there. But the heel of his right shoe is gone, and his fingers come away sticky with blood.
A voice filters dimly into his fogged brain: “Are you all right, Sergeant?” He wipes the tears from his stinging eyes and looks around. The sergeant who spoke and the young recruit beside him are dead. Three others are wounded. All had been farther from the shell than he was.
When a mortar detonates on contact with the ground, its fragments shoot upward and outward in a cone. Murphy had been standing close to the base of that cone and caught only the lightest edge of the fragmentation. Had he been three feet farther away, he knows he would not be alive.
During World War II, concussions resulting from mortar attacks were a significant source of traumatic brain injury (TBI). Soldiers experienced symptoms like headaches, dizziness, poor concentration, and memory problems following exposure to blasts, even without visible head injuries. The term “shell shock” was originally used in WWI to describe these symptoms, but was later replaced with terms like “post-concussion neurosis” in WWII. Head injuries from mortars contributed to a significant percentage of medically treated wounds during the war.
Murphy spends a few days in the hospital, not because of his brain injury, but because his foot was wounded. Then he’s back in the lines.
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
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 diaryFlo 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.”
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 detectorFlo 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 musiciansFlo 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.
June, 1944. Flo saw This is the Army at the Royal Opera House in Rome
My Mother and Audie Murphy Ch. 17
Drag, blackface, racial integration, “too many Jews”—they’re all part of the complicated legacy of Irving Berlin’s wartime musical revue, This Is the Army.
Berlin conceived the show in 1941, even before the U.S. entered WWII. It was a follow-up to a production he had staged during WWI in 1917.
This Is the Army premiered on Broadway in 1942, featuring a cast of 300—enlisted men who could sing and dance. The show then toured the U.S. before traveling to military bases worldwide, running until October 1945.
Berlin originally planned to open the show with a minstrel number, as he had in 1917, but director Ezra Stone pushed back. “Mr. Berlin,” he said, “I know the heritage of the minstrel show. Those days are gone. People don’t do that anymore.” Berlin eventually agreed to cut blackface from the stage production, though the number remained in the 1943 film adaptation.
Members of the This Is the Army unit rehearse “That’s What the Well-Dressed Man in Harlem Will Wear.” (NARA, 111-SC-140528)
Yet Berlin also made a bold move for the era: he insisted on integrating the show. At a time when the U.S. military remained segregated, This Is the Army became the only integrated unit in uniform. He even wrote a song specifically for Black performers.
Not all of Berlin’s decisions were as progressive. During the tour, he stunned cast members by complaining that there were “too many Jews in the show and too many of Ezra Stone’s friends.” The remark shocked those present—was the son of a cantor really saying this? For the soldier-performers, the fear was immediate: any cuts to the cast meant reassignment to the front lines.
The show’s use of drag also drew criticism. Warner Brothers, which produced the film version, worried that the female impersonators would limit its international release. “Female impersonators do not exist in Latin America,” claimed one misinformed studio memo. The studio also feared that images of U.S. soldiers in dresses would become enemy propaganda. In response, the film drastically reduced the female impersonators’ roles.
On June 4, 1944, Allied troops took Rome. Just six days behind them, This Is the Army rolled into the city on trucks. Later that month, the company took up residence at the Royal Opera House, performing twice daily.
The show was a global phenomenon, raising millions for the Army Emergency Relief Fund and leaving a lasting legacy.
June, 1944. From Murphy’s autobiography, To Hell and Back:
There is no triumph in Rome. The city is only another objective along an endless road of war. During the long, bitter months on the Anzio beachhead, the men dreamed of entering Rome in celebration. They imagined drinking, swaggering through its streets, losing themselves in indulgence and release. But when the city finally falls and they do enter, the feeling is nothing like victory. They pitch their tents in a public park and sleep with a depth that borders on collapse, waiting for something like life to return to their bodies.
They move through Rome like ghosts. The grand architecture and ancient monuments hold no power to lift the heart. Murphy feels as if he has been briefly spared from death, but the sparing brings no relief. Joy is impossible until the war is truly over. On the streets, surrounded by civilians, he feels lonelier than he did in the mud and gun smoke of the front. The men know others are still fighting to the north, and their thoughts remain with them.
As the front lines move forward, rear-echelon troops flood into the city. Their clean uniforms and easy laughter provoke an irrational resentment. The infantry still carry the smell of mud, cordite, smoke, and decay. They look at the rested, polished soldiers and feel a gulf that cannot be crossed.
One night, the resentment turns into a brawl. Murphy and his men clash with a group of air corps troops in a café. Chairs break, glass shatters, and bodies slam across tables until the military police arrive and shut it down. The MPs warn them not to return.
Day by day, Rome becomes less meaningful. The men begin drifting back to camp earlier, choosing their own company over the city. They gather in small groups as dusk settles, sharing bottles of wine. The songs they sing together come from home, from childhood, from a world untouched by war. The singing softens something inside them—feelings that have been buried beneath survival. The tenderness is temporary. It disappears the moment the order comes to shoulder their weapons and move again.
They leave Rome for another training ground, not knowing what operation lies ahead. Rumor fills the silence, but certainty is impossible.
Their next destination is the coast of southern France.
Flo is one of the first to enter the city after Nazis retreat
My mother and Audie Murphy ch. 15
The city of Rome was liberated by Allied troops June 4, 1944. Flo got to Rome the next day, June 5. She told me she was proud to come into the city with General Mark Clark and the U.S. 5th Army. The Third Division had taken big hits in battles at Anzio and on the Italian coast. Rome would be an easy victory, a source of prestige for the leaders and pride for infantrymen recovering from those battles. Later, historians and Allied commanders agreed that Clark’s decision to march into Rome instead of cutting off a large part of the retreating German army was a major blunder, extending the war for maybe another year. In any case, the liberation of Rome was overshadowed by the D-Day landings on the beaches of Normandy in northern France on June 6.
A page in Flo’s album. She saw the Irving Berlin show in Rome
Flo kept detailed notes in a tiny pocket-sized diary. This was the first entry.
Monday June 5, 1944
Came into Rome in amphib Jeep with Frank Gates.
They were traveling from the camp at Pozzuoli, a seaside town on the Gulf of Naples where they’d been bivouacked with the Third Division. At first I imagined that they drove the 138 miles on the bombed out rutted roads. But these amphibious jeeps were faster in the water than on land, so now I’m thinking they traveled on the water. Amphib jeeps were used by the Third Division because they were training for an amphibious landing in France that would take place in August.
photo: Wiki commonsPhoto:Ford GPA trials Unknown author – Library of Congress
The amphibious jeep. There were about 12,000 built by Ford.
Flo didn’t make note of who was with her and Frank Gates, but I’m imagining all four of the American Red Cross women in her group went to Rome together. Gates was able to secure a promise from a rich anti-Nazi Roman to allow the ARC clubmobilers to stay in his fancy villa. The four women moved in soon after. The man did much to make them comfortable.
I wasn’t able to find information about Frank Gates but I believe he was Flo’s boss, the Red Cross director on the Italian front whose job was to establish ARC canteens and clubs near the front lines of fighting. He would be driving around Rome to look for suitable buildings in which to house the clubs.
Unlike Naples, which had been bombed for years, Rome had been spared from widespread destruction by the Nazis in part due to its declaration as an “open city” by the Italian government and the efforts of the Vatican to protect it, which led to a relatively peaceful occupation and liberation. No one, perhaps not even the Nazis, wanted to be responsible for destroying that historic city.
The 1945 Italian film Rome, Open City, directed by Roberto Rossellini, takes place during the Nazi occupation of Rome. It was one of the first post-war Italian films to gain major acclaim internationally.
The ARC women were some of the first Americans to move into Rome. Before Allied troops started coming in, they had the city almost to themselves and set about seeing all the tourist sights. Flo wanted to see all the famous architectural treasures she had read about as a child.
From a report in the Yakima Herald-Republic
Florence Wick busy in Italy
Life in the Italian theatre of war can be fun as well as hard work for American Red Cross workers, Miss Florence Wick told her mother, Mrs. Gerda Wick of Yakima, in a recent letter.
“So much and so many exciting things have happened since I left home that I can’t believe any of it yet,” Miss Wick said. “This last event is the biggest dream yet. I am writing this in my new home, which is a beautiful, spacious Italian villa. We four girls moved in yesterday from our dusty camp down the road and have the whole villa and grounds to ourselves.
“There is a bathroom and bedroom for each of us and we truly live like princesses in a fairy tale. The villa belongs to a very wealthy Italian, who is an anti-fascist, who lost his whole family to the Germans. He loves to do favors for us.”
High praise for Capt. Harold Haines of Yakima was voiced by the Red Cross woman.
“Capt. Haines is something of a hero over here,” she said. “Fighting in a war does things like ‘knocking off’ officers and men, but Haines is one of the very few original officers left. Yakima should be very proud of him. His own men are and that’s the acid test out here.”
The nice weather makes it even more pleasant to drive around the various areas to serve the men, Miss Wick said. Because the unit is not yet equipped to turn out doughnuts for all the men, she has had time to visit interesting places she has read about but never expected to see. Mt. Vesuvius and the ancient city of Pompeii are among the sights she has seen.
“I don’t know how long we will be in this beautiful place,” Miss Wick said, “but we are going to enjoy it as long as we do stay. No doubt we will be roughing it again in a tent or bombed out building before long. I won’t mind that if I get to stay with this grand division.”
The ARC women didn’t stay in the villa in Rome very long. By July 9 Flo is back in the camp, writing in her diary about cleaning their tent.
