Chapter 38. Victory News

That spring of 1945 at the 95^th we were reading and listening nervously to learn the outcomes of battles here and there with the Germans.  Reports came separately from each of our several different Allied Forces:  the one fighting in the Battle of Berlin itself, others fighting in northern Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands, and others from south of Berlin in Central Europe and another in the Channel Islands.

Then on May 2 came the news of the surrender of Berlin.  The Allies started hearing of surrenders at the other battle scenes and on May 8, 1945 bells rang out all over Europe declaring the surrender of Germany.

At the 95^th, we were halfway through our supper in the Officer’s Mess and down the road we heard the distant clatter of church bells.  As one, we jumped up leaving our food behind and ran all the way on the dirt road to Bar-le-Duc.

With every church ringing bells, the clatter was memorable—loud enough to bother one’s ears.  After many minutes of ringing the bells, one by one they became silent.  Every ambulatory human being from the town and from the nearby countryside had collected on the central streets—French police, American officers and GIs, children, old people, waiters, nuns, farmers.  Almost immediately from the central square we heard instruments tooting and soon there was a full brass band.

In the square everybody grabbed someone else and started dancing.  Celebrations went on into the wee hours of the night.  And I along with most of the 95^th stayed until the light of dawn, dancing.  I danced, I remember, with quite a few French policemen, my standing out probably in my Red Cross uniform.

The following morning we would have learned the details of the surrender.  The German and the Allied commanders had been meeting in Reims for a day or two and on May 8 the Germans signed a statement which included these words:  “All forces under the German control to cease active operations at 2301 hours Central European time on May 8.”  The official surrender was first announced in France in the early evening of May 8.

As fewer injured GIs arrived at our hospital, time started hanging a bit heavy.  It happened that sometime that spring my boredom at Bar-le-Duc was replaced with boredom as a patient in another Army hospital not far from our location.  At the 95^th I had been treated with sulfa for a bronchitis spell, and had broken out with a nasty rash all over my body.  That’s how I learned of my sulfa allergy.  (At that time penicillin was not available, though I think it had been developed during World War II.)

Thus it was that I lay around in a women’s ward in an Army hospital waiting for the rash to die down!  Upon return “home,” I joined the other Red Crossers.  We were kept busy but without the kind of pressure and discomfort we had known for many earlier months.  We no longer had to wear heavy helmets everywhere we went outside, we could turn on lights, we had time to visit at the Officer’s Club and time even to have a happy hour before dinner sometimes.

But we still were concerned that we might feel obliged to go to the Pacific soon.  News from the Pacific fighting was still worrisome.