Chapter 28. Early 1945

Well settled into routine by winter 1945, early each morning we Red Crossers arrived at the Shanty as the German prisoners appeared.  Coming from their quarters nearby they were turning into the 95^th Hospital compound, marching in precise step, silent, to their day’s work.  Occasionally, a team of one or two prisoners, brought by a supervising corporal or sergeant, would appear at our Shanty.  Once they were told what to do the prisoners were left alone to complete their tasks of carpentry or other repair work.  Along with other 95^th personnel we were told never to speak to them.

For me that was difficult because it seemed they always worked efficiently and carefully.  Whatever they did, it seemed, turned out remarkably well.  On one occasion two young Germans showed up to replace the wooden floor at the entrance of the Shanty. Their exceptional work caused my military disobedience.  I said to them: “You have done a very good job.”  Standing tall, one replied in derision “Germans always do good work” in perfect English.

Never again did I break the silence rule, even when two German prisoners brought a single-bed mattress (used of course from who knows where).  It was placed on my cot in my lodging.  Although it drooped around the small rectangular frame of my cot it was sheer heaven at night compared to the sagging canvas of the cot.  The First Lieutenant Adjutant of the General heading the 819^th Hospital in Bar-le-Duc had sent the Germans on the task of taking the mattress to me.  (Upon returning state-side many months later, and not just because of the mattress, I married Captain Dan Lynch).

For a few weeks those early winter months, our GI patients got a kick out of calling us Red Cross workers the “Marx sisters.”  One night the youngest 4 of us Red Cross workers decided just for fun to cut our hair.  So next morning we all showed up with bangs.  The guys said we looked like Harpo Marx, so we became the Marx sisters.  Word of our bangs had reached Red Cross headquarters in Paris and we learned that many other hospital Red Cross teams had cut bangs all over France, if not England.  After most of our bangs had grown out a supervisor from Paris visited us at Bar-le-Duc.  The thing I remember was her dismay that we no longer were the Marx sisters.