Tag: Grenoble France

Catching Up to the 3rd Division

Flo and Liz Get Too Close to the Front Lines

My Mother and Audie Murphy Ch. 32

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 Besancon. 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.

Ch. 33: https://mollymartin.blog/?p=4213

Evidence of Nazi War Crimes Mounts

Catching up with the Third Division

My Mother and Audie Murphy Ch. 31

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

From Flo’s album
From Flo’s diary

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

Atrocities Are Reported

Sgt. Roberts Avers France Bled White

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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