Flo’s letter home was published in her hometown newspaper, the Yakima Republic.
Miss Wick in Germany: Sees Yanks Parade in Hitler Center
Parades in Hitler’s former stamping ground and presentation of congressional medals to brave American boys in a big Nazi stadium formerly ornamented with swastika flags, are among the sites witnessed by Miss Florence Wick, who is with the American Red Cross in Germany.
“General Patch presented five congressional medals of honor in the exact spot where Hitler used to ‘sell’ his theories to the Germans,” Miss Wick writes her mother, Mrs. Gerda Wick. “I have seen one of the biggest and most famous of Nazi cities in complete ruin. We drove in jeeps down streets which air corps and artillery have reduced to rubble.
War Messy
“War is a mess and how these people can be loyal to a leader who led them into it and brought about such destruction is more than I can understand. It is really something to drive through town after town and see white flags flying from windows.”
Hitler’s Zeppelin Stadium. Photo: Flo Wick
The doughnut business continues good, Miss Wick wrote three weeks ago. The Red Cross workers had been steadily on the move but serving doughnuts all of the time. Germany is beautiful now, especially in the places where the fruit trees bloom and everything is neat and clean, she says. Mail is slow when Red Cross workers, like the soldiers, are on the move. The weather was so warm they were wearing spring cotton uniforms, Miss Wick said.
“The cotton dresses are so welcome because I get tired of uniforms and can wear the dresses after work and when I go out or have company,” Miss Wick commented upon receiving some clothes from home. “We have to do our own laundry and it is a task with no conveniences, but cotton clothes make it simpler.”
Stars and stripes raised above the swastika at Zeppelin stadium. Photo: Flo Wick
Women Find Home
Most of the time the Red Cross workers have been living in tents although Miss Wick and her roommate found a room in an empty German house on their last move and were enjoying the comforts of a regular dwelling.
We have lovely days in between showers and the countryside is beautiful. We had a picnic in a patch of woods just below an old castle the other evening. We marveled that we were eating fried chicken and hard boiled eggs on a picnic in the woods of southern Germany.”
She “spent more time at the front lines than Gen. Eisenhower”
My Mother and Audie Murphy Ch. 64
April 1945. Marlene Dietrich was a huge movie star. Flo was star struck and delighted to meet her when she visited soldiers and the clubmobile crew in a field somewhere in southern Germany.
Dietrich was also a WWII hero. She became an active participant in the American war effort after renouncing her German citizenship and refusing to cooperate with the Nazi regime. She sold war bonds, raised significant funds for the troops, and performed hundreds of morale-boosting shows for Allied soldiers—often close to the front lines—through her USO tours.
Flo wrote: “Marlene up front. We took her picture. The GIs took ours.“
Dietrich was a humanitarian. She housed German and French exiles, provided financial support, and advocated for their American citizenship. In the late 1930s, she co-founded a fund with Billy Wilder and several other exiles to help Jews and dissidents escape from Germany. In 1937, she placed her entire $450,000 salary from Knight Without Armor into escrow to assist refugees. Two years later, in 1939, she became an American citizen and formally renounced her German nationality.
After the U.S. entered World War II in December 1941, Dietrich was among the first public figures to help sell war bonds. From January 1942 through September 1943, she toured the United States, and was reported to have sold more war bonds than any other Hollywood star.
“Danube River (It ain’t blue)”
During two extended USO tours in 1944 and 1945, Dietrich performed for Allied troops in Algeria, Italy, the United Kingdom, France, and the Netherlands, and later entered Germany with Generals James M. Gavin and George S. Patton. When asked why she risked being so close to the front lines, she simply replied, “aus Anstand”—“out of decency.” Billy Wilder later remarked that she had spent more time at the front than General Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Flo and Janet
In 1944, the Morale Operations Branch of the OSS launched the “Musak Project,” a series of musical propaganda broadcasts designed to weaken enemy morale. Dietrich recorded several German-language songs for the project, including “Lili Marleen,” a tune beloved by soldiers on both sides of the conflict.
Dietrich’s return to West Germany in 1960 for a concert tour was met with a mixed reception. Despite negative press, bomb threats, and protests from those who considered her a traitor, her performances drew large crowds. In Berlin, demonstrators shouted, “Marlene, go home!” Yet she also received warm support from others, including Berlin Mayor Willy Brandt, who, like Dietrich, had opposed the Nazis and lived in exile during their rule. Emotionally drained by the hostility she faced, Dietrich vowed never to return to West Germany—though she was warmly welcomed in East Germany.
Janet hands out donuts“Three donuts, one grin”
Her contributions earned her numerous honors, including the American Presidential Medal of Freedom and the French Legion of Honour. For her efforts to improve morale among troops and aid those displaced by the war, she received additional honors from the United States, France, Belgium, and Israel.
When Donald Trump illegally designated Antifa as a domestic terrorist organization, my concern for the future of our democracy deepened.
Antifa is not an organization, just a loose movement with no leaders. Because Antifa lacks structure, Trump’s move could target anyone the government assumes to be part of the movement, which could be you or me. I declare I am an antifascist. I object to the fascist takeover of my country.
Whatever you think of antifascists, probably you don’t think of the US government. But there was a time when the villains of US foreign policy were fascists. It was after the Spanish Civil War, 1936-39, in which the US refused to intervene, letting the fascists win with the help of Hitler, Mussolini and US oilmen (see Spain in Our Hearts by Adam Hochschild). It was before the CIA incorporated Nazi war criminals into its organization and focused our wrath on communists and the Soviet Union after WWII (see The Devil’s Chessboard by David Talbot).
Mom in uniform
In the aftermath of WWI, European writers sought to alert the world about the fascist threat and Americans—if they were paying attention—knew about what was happening in Europe. My mother, Florence Wick, was paying attention. What cultural influences caused her to join the American Red Cross (ARC) and serve in Europe during the second world war? What can we learn today from antifascist art?
Watch on the Rhine
In the years before television, theater played an influential role in shaping the culture. Visiting New York City in 1941, my mother saw Watch on the Rhine, an antifascist play written by Lillian Hellman. The popular play won the New York Drama Critics prize that year and was still on Broadway when Pearl Harbor was bombed on December 7, 1941. Made into a movie starring Bette Davis in 1943, Watch on the Rhine was representative of a genre of antifascist art popular in the US during the early years of WWII whose purpose was to persuade isolationist Americans to get involved in the European war. It certainly influenced my mother’s decision to join the Red Cross and go to war. I think it may have been one reason she chose to join the ARC, which promised a job overseas, rather than other slots that opened for women, which may have kept her behind a desk back in the States.
Playbook saved by Mom in 1941
I watched the movie and several others with similar messages. Some are just naked propaganda with unbelievable characters and dialog. Others, like Hellman’s, seek to educate Americans about the crisis in Europe, about class and about anti-Semitism. Hellman, who had briefly joined the Communist Party, wrote the play in 1940 following the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact of 1939. Her call for a united international alliance against Hitler contradicted the party’s position at the time. She was labeled a “premature antifascist” by the Communist Party, ironically later a moniker used by the FBI during the McCarthy purges to target communists. Her lover, Dashiell Hammett, who had also joined the Communist Party, wrote the screenplay.
His introduction reads: In the first week of April 1940 there were few men in the world who could have believed that, in less than three months, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Holland and France would fall to the German invaders. But there were some men, ordinary men, not prophets, who knew this mighty tragedy was on the way. They had fought it from the beginning, and they understood it. We are most deeply in their debt. This is the story of one of these men.
The man is Kurt Muller, a German who has devoted his life to the antifascist movement. We learn that he and many of his comrades fought in international brigades along with the Spanish Republicans to defend Spain’s democratically elected government against Francisco Franco’s fascists. They and others have constructed an underground antifascist organization in Europe. Watch on the Rhine shows us that fascists come in many shades; that Americans, naive about world politics, haven’t moved so far from slavery; that Bette Davis (bless her heart) excelled at overacting. The part played by Davis, Muller’s American wife, was expanded for the movie to make use of her star power at the box office.
The play is set in the Washington DC mansion of the wife’s family, whose dead patriarch had been a respected US Supreme Court justice. The family matriarch, Mama Fanny, runs it like a plantation, overseeing Black servants with strict control. When Joseph, the male servant, is summoned, he answers “Yasum.”
But Joseph gets some good lines. When Mama Fanny orders, “That silver has lasted 200 years. Now clean that silver,” Joseph says, “Not the way you take care of it Miss Fanny. I see you at the table and I say to myself, ‘There’s Miss Fanny doing it to that knife again.’ “
Hellman uses the three Muller children, sophisticated, language rich and worldly, to teach Americans about the outside world. “Grandma has not seen much of the world,” says the oldest, Joshua. “She does not understand that a great many work most hard to get something to eat.”
We learn that the antifascist movement is nonviolent. The youngest kid, Bodo, says, “We must not be angry. Anger is protest and should only be used for the good of one’s fellow man.”
The movie is both a critique of American culture and an attempt to school Americans about developments in Europe. Hellman did deep research for her script, and I thank her for helping me to understand this historical period and the forces that shaped it. Like most films from this era, it’s not available on Netflix, but I was able to check it out from the San Francisco Public Library.
The Moon Is Down
During Hitler’s rise, Nazis were winning the propaganda war. Leni Riefenstahl’s 1935 Nazi propaganda film, Triumph of the Will, was and still is much admired. Alarmed artists approached the US government with proposals for antifascist plays, movies and books, among them the famous writer John Steinbeck. The result of his effort, the novella, The Moon is Down, was published in March 1942. The next month it played on Broadway and a year later premiered as a movie. Its purpose was to motivate the resistance movements in occupied countries. The sinister title comes from Shakespeare’s Macbeth.
I accidentally discovered the thin book in a friend’s library and read it with great interest. It describes life in a town that has been invaded and occupied by the German fascist army.
There is bloodshed. Orders are followed. People resist, are arrested and executed. People flee. Some people collaborate. Others form an underground to communicate with those on the outside. At the end of the book, the war is still going. But the invaders have been surrounded and we are very aware that the invaders have become the harassed. In a way, the occupiers have become the occupied.
Steinbeck acknowledges the humanity of the enemy. We learn as much about the motivations and humanness of the invaders as the invaded. For that reason the book was criticized mercilessly in the US and Steinbeck’s patriotism questioned. But Europeans loved it. It was translated into many languages and became the most popular piece of Allied propaganda in WWII.
Five Came Back
Things weren’t looking good for the Allies as the US joined the war effort after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Germany and Japan were conquering Europe and the Pacific. The US had only just started to gear up its factories to make war materiel and Europe feared we wouldn’t get it there in time to stop the Nazi advance. It was during this time that the US antifascist propaganda machine went into high gear.
From 1942 to 1945, Frank Capra directed a series of seven antifascist propaganda films, narrated by the actor Walter Huston. The series, called Why We Fight, was produced by the War Department to make the case for US involvement in WWII. These films can now be accessed online. I also saw Five Came Back, a three-part Netflix series about five American film directors, including Capra, who produced propaganda for the US government during the war. The others were John Ford, William Wyler, John Huston, and George Stevens.
Making movies of the war changed the filmmakers as well as audiences. We learn that they were haunted by what they saw. Wyler was shocked by racism against Black soldiers and refused to make a film meant to recruit Blacks. Stevens, at Dachau, realized he should be there to film evidence of crimes against humanity, not propaganda. Ford turned to drink after witnessing the bloodbath on D-Day. Huston took on PTSD only to have his film suppressed by the government. Racism was present in these films. While Germans were depicted as humans, Japanese were often seen as subhuman caricatures. The government worried, rightly, that violence against Japanese Americans would result. Then, in 1942, it incarcerated them until the end of the war.
Women in WWII: 13 short films featuring America’s Secret Weapon
Most of these are US military propaganda films whose purpose was to convince women to join the WACS or other service, and also to persuade men that women could do the work. Some were written by Eleanor Roosevelt and narrated by famous actors like Katherine Hepburn. The American Red Cross, in which my mother served, wasn’t mentioned, but there was a picture of an ARC club in North Africa.
I wish the government had made films like this for women in the trades. In one scene a couple of men are talking on their front porch about how one’s sister wants to join the WACS and they think she’s crazy. It’s a man’s war, they say. Then the film counters their sexism and shows competent women doing all sorts of jobs. However, these films also endeavored to persuade women that they were taking men’s jobs and they needed to go back home after the war and relinquish their war jobs to returning soldiers. It was made clear that the jobs belonged to men.
I don’t know if my mother saw any of these films, but it was this sort of government propaganda that propelled her and her generation into World War II. When the enemy was fascism, she was “as patriotic as they come,” according to her sister. Only after the war did she begin to question the government-constructed enemies of the state.
Imaginary Witness: Hollywood and the Holocaust
Released in 2004, this film makes the case that the story of the Holocaust has been told to the world by films made in Hollywood, starting with Warner Bros. Confessions of a Nazi Spy in 1939, then MGM’s The Mortal Storm in 1940. Neither of these films used the word Jew. The Jewish studio heads wanted to stay in the closet and just be known as Americans. Also, the movie industry made a lot of money from selling its films to Germany during the early years of Hitler’s takeover. Some historians now view studio directors as Nazi collaborators.
Finally in 1940 Charlie Chaplin used the word Jew in The Great Dictator, which he made with his own money. Imagining that an antifascist film can also be hysterically funny might be difficult until you see The Great Dictator. Chaplin slays as Adenoid Hynkel, a thinly disguised Hitler. Jack Oakie’s spoof of Mussolini inspires hilarity. This film is testament to Chaplin’s comic genius. In the globe scene, Chaplin/Hynkel performs a ballet dance with a balloon earth, achieving perfect domination. Chaplin impersonates Hitler to great comic effect. He watched Riefenstahl’s propaganda film Triumph of the Will to learn Hitler’s speech patterns and body movements. Chaplin later said that if he had known the extent of Nazi atrocities, he wouldn’t have made the film. I’m so glad he did.
My mother told us kids stories about her time in Europe during the war, but she never talked about the Holocaust and we were not taught about this historical period in school. So I didn’t learn until 1970 that she had been present at the liberation of Dachau. What finally got her talking was an American TV mini-series, QB VII, about a British court case involving concentration camp crimes. It exemplifies how American media jogged the memories and imaginations of war survivors even 25 years after the war.
Night Will Fall
In 1945 a team of British filmmakers overseen by Alfred Hitchcock went to Germany to document the Nazi death camps. Their documentary, German Concentration Camps Factual Survey, was suppressed and then lost for seven decades. Night Will Fall, a 2014 documentary directed by Andre Singer, chronicles the making of the 1945 film and includes original footage. These images are hard to watch, but I think we need to see them, to witness the consequences of fascism.
The death camp films were suppressed partly because they were thought too graphic for British and American tastes. And American tastes had changed almost as fast as superstate enemies revolved in Orwell’s dystopian novel, 1984. The Germans, our most recent deadly enemy, had become our friends. The Soviet Union, our recent ally, and communism, was now our mortal enemy.
With my neighbors at the No Kings demo in Santa Rosa October 18
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.
Flo titled this page of her album “With the Q.M. in all the best fields in Germany.“
The Quartermaster Corps was responsible for supplying the essentials—food, clothing, and equipment—to soldiers on the front lines. They ran supply depots, managed transportation networks, and made sure the troops had what they needed to keep operations moving.
Fritzie and BillTypical German village streetOur donut boysGerman shrineWith the QM in all the best fields in GermanyRelieving a patrol!The crew’s dog TD
This page of the album is packed with photos. What do they reveal on closer look?
Spring has arrived in 1945. The grass is green again, and Flo is wearing her summer uniform in one picture. Fritzie has a soldier boyfriend—or maybe a husband—named Bill! Even though the crew has its own clubmobile, they still rely on a team of “donut boys” to do the actual frying. These clubmobilers may never have had to cook donuts themselves. Which kind of makes sense; they gave out thousands of donuts daily and needed a whole crew to make them. Flo got to relieve a patrol—she’s still in the regulation Red Cross skirt. The dog, T.D., remains a star attraction. The group has been able to get into German towns. The pictures suggest that the women are camped here with the Q.M. They’re back to living in tents—or maybe sleeping in their clubmobile again.
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.
March 1945. The clubmobile was a two-and-a-half-ton GMC truck outfitted with coffee and donut-making equipment, and side windows that opened into a makeshift canteen—something like the taco trucks we see in cities today.
Scores of these trucks rolled onto Omaha Beach in July 1944, just weeks after the D-Day landings in France, each assigned to a crew of four American Red Cross (ARC) women. Their mission was to follow the troops, serving donuts, coffee, and good cheer to the men coming off the front lines.
The ARC crew finally gets its own clubmobile
The ARC women who landed in Italy, including my mother, Flo Wick, traveled with the armies north through southern France and all the way to the Rhine. But until they crossed into Germany, Flo’s crew had no clubmobile of their own. They improvised, scrounging whatever vehicles they could find to deliver donuts to soldiers.
Flo and Janet with TC loving their new truck
On this page of her album, Flo posted the first pictures of clubmobiling in Germany. Here, at last, they were issued their own truck—nearly a year into their service overseas.
The photos hint at a trade-off: the women may have had to endure some “good-natured” groping in exchange for their vehicle. Flo names “Lamour Harrigan” of the 7th Infantry Service Company as the man with his arms locked tightly around her. She is laughing in the photo, but the other women’s faces tell another story. Liz looks distinctly unhappy, while Fritzie, in trousers and an army jacket, seems to be sidestepping unwanted attention.
Dancing in the mud
Flo herself is captured dancing in the mud. On the back of the photo she wrote:“Markelsheim, Germany. Jitterbugging in the mud—March 1945. Note the big galoshes. Sad days.”
So she did learn to jitterbug after all. But the note carries a weight. There were plenty of reasons to feel sad—her fiancé, Gene, had been killed, and so many others were dying still. Yet she put on a brave face. Must smile.
A blurry picture of the townLt. Col Chris Chaney
Interestingly, on the same album page, Flo pasted a picture of her boyfriend, Lt. Col. Chris Chaney. Perhaps it was her way of making clear she wasn’t romantically tied to any of the men in those muddy, grinning snapshots.
Janet and the crew’s dog, TC. That’s Liz sitting on the Clubmobile’s hood.
The ARC crew’s adopted dog, TC, had been with them since they landed in France (TC is short for something, but I can’t remember what). They all doted on him, but from these pictures it appears he took to Janet more than the others. His presence offered moral and emotional support to both the women and soldiers.
“OUT OF THE LINE, Nancy, France” Flo wrote on this album page, where she pasted a handful of invitations from February and March 1945. The front was quiet for a spell, and for a few precious days it was party time.
In Belleville, just north of Nancy, the French put on a parade with bands playing and troops marching in review. The 30th Infantry Regiment hosted a couple of lively dances too.
The best invitation, though, was a tongue-in-cheek “battle order” for a party called Plan Jitterbug, issued from 7th Infantry headquarters with Colonel Heintges in command. Under Intelligence it warned that “numerous Wolves in the Stag Line” would be present and could only be defeated by outmaneuvering their flanking moves and cut-ins. At the bar, one could expect “a normal amount of obstacles and confusion.”
Under Attachments the orders promised “several pretty nurses and Red Cross women,” advising “close cooperation with these units” for the evening’s success. Escorts and proper infantry protection were guaranteed.
It was all in good fun—a way to laugh, flirt, and dance before heading back into the seriousness of war. The parties in Nancy marked the end of the campaign in France. From there, the Third Division would soon cross into Germany.
It’s easy to picture the American forces in WWII as all white. Wartime photographs, newsreels, and official histories rarely show otherwise. Flo’s own scrapbook from two years overseas with the American Red Cross and the Third Division contains no mention or images of Black soldiers.
Yet more than one million Black men and women served in the U.S. armed forces during the war. Their service was essential, though often invisible. Flo herself was no stranger to racial injustice—before the war she had been active in the YWCA’s anti-racism campaigns and in efforts to integrate the organization.
Pvts. George Cofield and Howard J. Davis guard a newly-constructed bridge site over the Rhine River, built by U.S. Ninth Army Engineers. March 30, 1945. Photo: NARA
Historian Matthew F. Delmont, in Half American, argues that the United States could not have won the war without the contributions of Black troops. At the outset, however, the military tried to exclude them entirely. The Army, dominated by white supremacist segregationists, turned away Black volunteers after Pearl Harbor. Officials feared the political consequences of arming Black men. But as the war expanded, the need for manpower forced a compromise: a segregated military.
Many training camps were located in the South, where local white residents often harassed or assaulted Black soldiers. Abroad, Black Americans saw stark parallels between Nazi ideology and U.S. racial laws. The Pittsburgh Courier, a Black newspaper read nationwide, launched the “Double Victory” campaign—calling for victory over fascism overseas and victory over racism at home.
Troops of a field artillery battery emplace a 155mm howitzer in France. They have been following the advance of the infantry and are now setting up this new position. June 28, 1944. NARA
Segregated combat units fought bravely despite facing discrimination from their own commanders. The 92nd Infantry Division served in Italy beginning August 1944, possibly crossing paths with the Third Division. The Montford Point Marines, the 761st “Black Panther” Tank Battalion, and the celebrated Tuskegee Airmen also saw combat. Black soldiers fought and died at Normandy, Iwo Jima, and the Battle of the Bulge.
Cpl. Carlton Chapman, a machine-gunner in an M-4 tank, attached to a Motor Transport unit near Nancy, France. 761st Mt. Bn. November 5, 1944. NARA
Most, however, served in unheralded but vital support roles. They built roads, hauled supplies, cooked, repaired equipment, and maintained the machinery of war. Seventy percent of all soldiers in U.S. supply units were Black. “WWII,” one historian wrote, “was a battle of supply,” and these troops kept that battle moving. There was even an all-Black American Red Cross contingent that ran segregated service clubs for Black troops.
The U.S. military and press often hid these contributions. Photographers were instructed to avoid showing Black soldiers in official images. When the war ended, Black veterans returning to the South were targeted for violence—beaten, harassed, and in some cases murdered—for wearing their uniforms. This had happened after WWI, and it happened again. Many veterans, like decorated soldier Medgar Evers, became leaders in the postwar civil rights struggle.
Lt. Joseph W. Hill of Pine Bluff, Ark., commanding a unit of the Japanese-American Team in action against the Germans, discusses enemy positions with a member of his unit. Company “F”, 2nd Battalion, 442nd Regiment (Combat Team). 13 Nov 1944, St. Die Area, France Signal Corps Photo (Musser) NARA
Alongside Black troops, the segregated 442nd Regimental Combat Team of Japanese American soldiers fought in the European Theater. Formed in 1943, the 442nd was made up largely of Nisei—second-generation Japanese Americans—many of whom had families incarcerated in U.S. internment camps. Beginning in 1944, they served in Italy, southern France, and Germany, becoming one of the most decorated units in U.S. military history.
The contributions of these segregated units—Black and Japanese American alike—were essential to Allied victory. Yet their service has been downplayed or erased from the dominant WWII narrative. Restoring these stories helps reveal a fuller, truer picture of the war that Flo witnessed.
Searching through archives kept by my cousin Gail (our mothers were sisters), I was delighted to find two letters written by my mother, Flo, to her mother, Ruth–one in August, 1944 and the other dated February 1, 1945. These have helped to give a more personal perspective to the ARC women’s lives. Here Flo muses about death and war while describing everyday life of the clubmobilers in the French mountains. She reveals that the wedding rings her fiance Gene had ordered from home had arrived the day after he died.
February 1, 1945
Dearest Ruth:
“Your letter of December 4 just reached me a few days ago – mail has had no priority and many of my Christmas greetings and cards arrived just now. However, packages came through well and I had all of yours from home in time. Thanks for the grand gifts, Ruthie – they were so appreciated. The sweatshirt was the envy of everyone (we wear them with our clubmobile uniforms) and I love the slip and underwear. Was down to “Rock bottom.” Your cake was eaten so quickly, all I can remember was that it was very good.
(Flo admires pictures of Ruth’s three girls)
“Thanks for the sympathy and your philosophical comments. I’ve “recovered” if you can call it that, but it was a cruel shock, and I wouldn’t want to go through it again. We see friends “go” so often these days that death is close always, though it never ceases to be tragic and futile. Gene’s first sergeant, a fine, handsome boy, who has a lovely wife and darling three-year-old daughter, and who was always so good to me, has been killed in the last few days. That’s the way it goes – they leave one by one, particularly in a combat outfit like theirs and my division. The few who have survived almost 3 years of constant fighting, are very tired and should go home, but probably won’t until the war is over.
“Gene’s family write to me often and find it hard to believe he is gone. They are sending me the rings he bought and which arrived over here the day after he was killed and were returned to them. Somehow, I don’t want them, but they think I should have them.
“We are in the mountains and have had a lot of snow the last month but a very welcome chinook wind has melted much of it, which makes driving on these roads less hazardous. Evidently the French ski a great deal around here and there are some attractive ski places, as well as good slopes. I never seem to have time to try them out, but some of the boys did and had a fun time.
Drawing by Liz Elliottneeds no explanation
“Our infantry is “busy” as usual, and we are waiting to see them and feed them donuts again. It is always hard, after a session in the lines, to see them again and find friends are missing.
“After a brief session of gaiety in Strasbourg our social life has been reduced to practically nil. Contrary to many ideas, we do not indulge in much social activity; the men are pretty well occupied, you know, and it is only when they have a brief rest that we have a dance or two.
“We continue moving frequently and just made another one today. Lately we have been living in French homes and are coming to know the natives quite well. I can’t speak much French, but can understand it quite well when they slow down to 50 mph instead of 90.
“Right now we have rather cramped quarters in a home which is filled with refugees who were burned out of their homes when the Germans left. Many of these people have lost everything and many, of course, being Alsatian, are torn between being Frenchmen or Germans.
“We’ve been “up front” a few times – within a few hundred yards and within firing range, but it looks no different from any other place, unless the towns have been shelled (and most of them have). There are no trenches, like the last war, And much of the time, it moves so fast, there are no foxholes either, though they “dig in” if they are holding a line. We were shelled in one of the villages the other day, though it happened so quickly, we didn’t have time or sense enough to be frightened. It isn’t fun, even if it seemed funny afterwards.
“There have been setbacks for the Americans in France, but we are happier about the situation now and the Russian drive is encouraging too. I doubt if I will be home for some time yet, but then, I certainly won’t be among the first to leave.
“My package – sent to Mom – with gifts for you all should have reached you by now. I hope they serve the purpose; it is difficult to find anything worthwhile here – their stores and supplies have been hard-hit.
“I like to hear about your kids and other news of the people at home. Betty doesn’t write very often, but mom is wonderfully faithful and takes care of me over here almost as well as she did at home.
“If there are any of my clothes – hats, shoes etc. that you can wear and want to, help yourself, because they will be out of style when I get home and I’d like to have you get some use out of them. Just go down and see what you can use.
You had to be a mechanic too. Drawing by Liz
“Very seldom see a movie (last one was “A guy named Joe” which I saw with Gene and which he didn’t like; he was killed a few days later and the show haunted me).* They have very few good ones and very few period. Read seldom, too, and even more seldom hear a radio, so you see my mode of living and entertainment has changed considerably.”
*(This was a popular war movie starring Spencer Tracy, Irene Dunne and Van Johnson about an American pilot who is killed when his plane goes down after bombing a German aircraft carrier. Then he is sent by “the general” back to earth to train a pilot in the South Pacific war. At the end he’s still dead. The Irene Dunne character gets to fly planes too. The screenwriters were Dalton Trumbo and Frederick Hazlitt Brennan.)
“We have the fellows at the 2.M. (not sure what this means) in quite a bit, toot around the country in our jeep whenever we can and manage to never be bored, which keeps us happy, I suspect.
“I like the work and love the boys. Life gets very simple and fundamental, if you can understand that, and we share many of the same experiences, which makes everyone a friend.
“Eve was fine but busy, and Paris is the same lovely lovely city, though they have food shortages, little fuel and all that. It didn’t seem too unusual to see Notre Dame Cathedral on Christmas morning, but in years to come it will be quite a recollection. Eve and Janet were very good to me and it was like home to see them. Janet’s husband was wounded tho not seriously and she was quite upset. I hope to go back in the spring– It would be even nicer there then in the lovely parks.
“Maybe my own luck will change one of these days; at least I can share sorrow and sincerely sympathize with others who are hit by the tragedy of war. It makes me even a worse “softie,” but there are many to share it with.“
tradeswomn musings 