Chapter 1. Off to War

Lady Be Good! suddenly streamed down from a band from up above our gangplank’s single line of olive drab female drudges—the 110 nurses and 5 Red Cross workers assigned to the 95^th General Hospital embarking on the Aquitania in early January 1944.  To reach the port, from Camp Kilmer, NJ, on an old railroad track we had to march several blocks loaded with every item we possessed (excluding the footlocker that would be shipped).  We toted unbelievable weight:  we had to wear our warmest wool clothes, plus the GI wool-lined full length raincoat, heavy wool scarf and gloves, 4-buckle rubber galoshes over field boots, our heads topped off with steel helmets and liners, carrying the ditty bags loaded with our travel clothes and personal items on one shoulder and on the other our gas masks in their bags.

“Is this trip necessary?” I wondered for the first time on the adventure (but not the last).  Never, though, did I question my decision to join the war effort except for times of fatigue or extreme physical discomfort.  My Red Cross experience was the most fulfilling work experience of my life.

Volunteering for the Red Cross overseas I had left a well-paying, interesting job in Washington, DC, having advanced rapidly with a public administration MA beyond my BA in political science.  I was working in FPHA which was responsible for providing nationwide emergency housing for wartime workers.

Still in my early 20s I had loved Washington life.  Yet as my peers began signing up for the military I felt downright selfish and unpatriotic; I wanted to be in the middle of the action, not in some indirect effort like housing!  I was accepted as an Ensign in the Navy but learned I’d just work across the Potomac instead of in downtown DC, and for less than current pay.  Except for nurses and for a few women who delivered airplanes to troops, I had learned, only the Red Cross volunteers were allowed in overseas jobs.  At 24 I longed to see the world.  “Who cares about pay or benefits?”

Upon acceptance as a Red Cross worker I had to finish the special training set up at American University by the Red Cross.  There were three categories of Recreation Workers: setting up programs and working with hospital patients, setting up clubs and entertainment for military on leave, and going in “doughnut wagons” close to the actual fighting to provide a moment of “home” for the soldiers.  I chose hospital.

After training in Washington I was sent to an Army Hospital at Hempstead on Long Island for a brief on-the-job period.  And THEN I lolled around for two or three weeks back in Washington in a hotel before my assignment came through.  Maybe that inactivity accounted for my distress walking up that gangplank into the second largest cruise ship afloat at the time to cross the Atlantic alone, without convoy escort.