Double Victory (24 page)

Hazel was the assistant field director of the Red Cross club located at the 95th Engineer army post. She was taken by car over a dirt road to her new home—a room in a wooden hut. When she arrived in her room she saw a dressing table, wash-stand, and chest of drawers made from odd pieces of wood. Hazel found a note on the dressing table that read,

To the first lady of the Alcan, we are pleased to have you and hope that you will enjoy the use of this furniture as much as we have enjoyed making it for you. You are brave and have done a fine thing to leave all the comforts of civilian life to come to us and may God guide you and keep you always. We feel as if this war is really worth fighting for now that you have come to us, and we know we will win this war.

Hazel was determined to open the Red Cross Club as soon as possible. She spent her first day sewing curtains, cleaning windows, and arranging furniture. She also spent some time interviewing the soldiers about their welfare. Over the next few months Hazel made the club into a “home away from home” for the soldiers. She managed to get a couple of pool tables and ping-pong tables. A stage was built where the men produced a play called
Dozing Along,
which was about their lives on the Alcan Highway, where bulldozers were the common form of transportation. Hazel said her experience on the Alcan Highway was something she'd never forget. She was grateful that she was able to serve her country and the Red Cross. “It also makes me believe that this democracy is worth fighting for and I know we will win this war. I intend to do my part.”

In July 1943 Hazel was sent to London, England, where she supervised the Home Hospitality Committee at a Red Cross club for black service members. It was her duty to help create positive relations between black American soldiers and the British citizens. Hazel did do her part for the war effort, but she didn't live to see the end of the war. In October 1944 she died after a surgery and was buried in England.

Some Red Cross assignments were definitely more enviable than others. Three black Red Cross workers arrived at their destination in February 1944. Sara R. Johnson, Helen Chequita Lone-wolf, and Ruby Kelly had been sent to operate a “negro-staffed club” for the Red Cross “somewhere in North Africa.” Ruby, a former teacher, had requisitioned a beautiful farmhouse with a view of the Mediterranean Sea for use as the Red Cross clubhouse. Thousands of black troops in the area visited the Country Club, as it was known. Ruby was astonished one day when a soldier threw his arms around her, picked her up, and carried her into
the clubhouse. The soldier was her brother-in-law; he had heard she was in North Africa, where he was stationed. He had been looking for her whenever he had a spare moment. He finally spotted her at the Country Club and was so happy he couldn't resist sweeping Ruby off her feet. She was embarrassed by the whole thing, but the soldiers who watched the spectacle were delighted.

Cheers and applause greeted four black Red Cross volunteers when they arrived at the Doctor Carver Club in Australia in August 1943. They were the first black volunteers to arrive in Australia, and the black soldiers were thrilled at the sight of Grace Outlaw, Clara Wells, Rosemary Spears, and Geraldine Randall. Grace had been a social worker in New York City before volunteering to go overseas with the Red Cross. Clara had a master's degree in physical therapy and was excited about her first trip abroad although her seasickness made the trip a little less enjoyable. Rosa had worked in Oregon for the YWCA before joining the Red Cross. And it was expected that Geraldine would be especially popular with the soldiers because she “could make the piano talk.”

In October 1944 another family reunion took place “somewhere in the Southwest Pacific.” Thelma Holman Raynor was serving with the Red Cross when she met James Newman, a sailor from Virginia. She remembered meeting a sailor named Frank Newman just a few days before this. She asked James if he had a brother. James said he did have a brother named Frank, and he thought his brother was in “this part of the world.” Thelma told James she
knew
with certainty that he was, because she had just met him. It didn't take long for Thelma to get the brothers together. She immediately planned a special dinner at the Red Cross club where she worked. The Newman brothers, along with Thelma, enjoyed a happy reunion.

“Somewhere in New Guinea,” in January 1944, the
Pittsburgh Courier
newspaper reported, six black “goddesses” stepped off a ship to the awe of hundreds of black soldiers. The women were Red Cross workers who had volunteered for overseas duty. But to the soldiers—some who hadn't seen a woman in months—they were goddesses. Rosa Spears, Clara Wells, Norma Manley, Nola “Kitty” Cox, Laura Anderson, and Mary Parker had come to operate the Club Papua. The soldiers had walked miles to get a glimpse of the women. Some of the soldiers brought gifts. Some talked and talked. Some were silent. Some just stared. Others had tears in their eyes.

Clara Wells must have been a very levelheaded woman, or she could have been swept off her feet. She arrived at Club Papua from her former assignment at the Doctor Carver Club. Clara said she received hundreds of marriage proposals while she was in Australia. And while that might sound like a glamorous life, Clara described her typical day at a Red Cross club as far from glamorous: no time for breakfast, no coffee, no juice, no ice, no bath, no mouthwash, plenty of ants and mosquitoes, and—thankfully—plenty of deodorant brought from home. After a game of cards and a ride in an amphibious jeep—a vehicle that traveled on land and water, she ate her lunch of beef and corn. Then she read some of her 188 letters—mostly from soldiers—and one from her boyfriend. She wrapped packages for a soldier, wrote a letter to an anxious mother, and sent a sympathy letter to a bereaved family. Late in the afternoon a group of soldiers leaving for a “destination unknown” asked her to sing their favorite song for them—“Baby, Don't You Cry.”

“No matter what you say
I'm gonna leave you right away
So now, baby, baby, don't you cry.”

Kitty Cox was one of the black women who worked at the Club Papua, and it prepared her well for her next assignment at Oro Bay, a city of tents, crude wooden structures, and thatched huts carved out of the jungle. It was home to 10,000 soldiers. And those 10,000 soldiers idolized the only woman at Oro Bay—Kitty Cox.

When Kitty arrived in April 1944 she was one of two black women sent to operate the Red Cross recreation hall called Club Paradise. The other woman—Laura Anderson—stayed for a couple of months before she left for her home in the United States. Kitty was left to manage the club alone. Kitty decided to take advantage of the 10,000 soldiers and put them to work. The men organized committees to operate the club. They elected officers and had a constitution.

Although the soldiers took on much of the work of running the club, Kitty had plenty to do. She had a knack for locating scare supplies—ice cream, jam, cheese, chess sets, ping-pong balls, paper cups, lumber, bolts of cloth, books, and even circus tents. She even managed to hustle up aluminum from wrecked airplanes when the soldiers needed materials for their hobby workshop. She had to get the clubmobile—a big van stocked with snacks and soft drinks—out to isolated locations for the men who couldn't get in to Club Paradise. And the fact that the club's committees were operated by soldiers presented a unique problem. Sometimes an entire committee was wiped out overnight by the enemy. When that happened, Kitty had to assume the responsibilities of that committee until replacements could be found. Most days Kitty spent 12 to 14 hours a day at the club before returning to her sleeping quarters at the Banana Manor.

By the end of 1944, France had been liberated from German occupation. Black American soldiers were stationed in France, and Red Cross officials moved black workers from England to set
up and manage clubs for the soldiers. Geneva Holmes had already spent 10 months in Plymouth, England, where she provided services for the thousands of black soldiers who participated in the D-day invasion at Normandy, France, in June 1944. Now she was off to Paris. Olive Blackwell, Estelle Trent, Geraldine Ross, and Thelma Pratt left England for Paris as well. Sydney Taylor Brown was sent to operate a club at Le Mann, France; and Lucille McAllister went to Rennes. La Verne Birch and C. Gladys Martin were sent to operate the Liberty Club at Cherbourg.

Some of the newly arrived women would be attached to clubmobiles on the famous Red Ball Express. After the liberation of France the Allied armies had the Germans on the run. As the Allies chased the retreating Germans across France and Germany, they needed huge amounts of supplies—especially gasoline. The Sherman tanks were gas guzzlers—moving only one to two miles on a gallon of gasoline. But it wasn't easy getting supplies from the port cities to the fighting men. So the military came up with a plan to take over two roads just for their use. Six hundred miles of roadway—the Red Ball Express—was designated for military use only. One road was used solely by the trucks loaded with supplies; the other road was used solely by the returning trucks. The trucks ran 24 hours a day. Most of the truck drivers were black servicemen. They were whom the black Red Cross women were sent to France to serve. With the exhausting schedule, the soldiers were in need of rest and relaxation when they could get it. The Red Cross workers were there to offer it.

Clubmobile in France, March 1945.
Courtesy of the American Red Cross/All rights reserved in all countries

Mines, mud, mountainous terrain, and bitterly cold floodwa-ters made the fighting especially miserable for the all-black 92nd Division of the army in western Italy in late 1944 and early 1945. Add to that constant, heavy shellfire from the enemy. It was almost unbearable for the soldiers. But not far behind the front lines, Red Cross workers Geneva Howard, Marie Leach, Sybil Gowby, and Elizabeth Coppin offered a break from the misery. They operated a portable club unit that provided facilities for reading, writing, and recreation, along with a snack bar. And for those soldiers who were fighting in isolated areas and not able to get to the portable units, Ruth Pius, Viola Miller, and Gladys Powell drove a clubmobile to the soldiers. They got as close to the front lines as possible to deliver coffee and fresh doughnuts.

Sara B. Johnson (left), Geraldine Dyson (middle), and Evelyn G. Vaughan (right) with the Red Cross serve hot coffee and doughnuts to troops manning anti-aircraft defenses with the Fifth Army in Italy in 1943.
Courtesy of the American Red Cross by Ollie Atkins/All rights reserved in all countries

Red Cross club girls Wilhelmina Barrow and Juanita Morrow, both from New York City, serve troops of the 27th Chemical Company after traveling 100 miles by truck to deliver cookies and doughnuts, October 1945.
American Red Cross photo by Gerald Waller, courtesy of the American Red Cross/All rights reserved in all countries