July 24, 1945
Wabern, Germany
No. 42 (continued)
Dear Folksies,
Annie Dunn dropped from the air onto us the other day. She has been at anesthesia school in Paris – but apparently most of those schools are just chances for good times in whatever city they happen to be. Her course consisted of 2 lectures a week – they have been somewhat worthwhile, she said, but she has spent most of her time gadding about Paris, and, in fact, hitch-hiked to London over one week-end, by air. She and Bertha Moore are up there at school and one evening they decided to try to get to London. So, they went to the airport and showed Bertha’s traveling orders. They were orders authorizing her to go to Paris and return by air. Nobody, strangely enough, seemed to know where the 7th Army was, so took it for granted that it was in England…so off the gals went.
They had a grand time tho’ were only in London a very short time. They had to show orders wherever they went – to get rooms, etc. but the mere fact that they had orders –- any kind of orders—turned the trick. On their way back, they had difficulty with a British WAC, who said that their orders were “most irregular”. You see, Ann had no flying orders and Bertha’s orders were just written by the Chief Nurse of the 11th Field Hosp. Anyway, they finally detoured around the British WAC and managed to make a hurried taxi ride to another airport and got back to Paris on those screwy orders. She was a scream and kept us all in hysterics for the almost 48 hrs that she stayed with us.
She brought us, too, some funny information concerning the group of 9 that was on its way home. I told you that 7 of them went by bus to Thionville. Well, from there they were taken, it seems, by truck, to Paris to await a plane there. It was expected that they would leave in one or two days from Paris. Frank Gerbode had gotten smart—as long as the Col. drove all the way to Paris, well, he was going to also. Sooo, he took poor Wally with him, took a driver, and they headed for Paris at the same time the bus headed for Thionville. They got into France alright, but not very far in. And then—Kaput! They had four flat tires! They left the driver with the car and told him they didn’t care what he did with it – he could either leave it or get the tires fixed and take the car back to Roy. From there, with all their baggage, they hitch-hiked their way to Paris!
That was just the circumstance that Jack had been terribly afraid would occur and had warned Wally not to go with Frank. Of course, few cared if that happened to Frank – but if Wally missed the plane because of Frank’s crazy idea, well, everyone would have wept. Anyway, as it happened, they got to Paris about the same time as did Brown and the others who did it in two stages, and, apparently, all were going to fly home pronto.
Another prized one – on Gerbode too: It seems that Martha just couldn’t stand being away so long from him, so she had a plan and finally got all the details worked out and was on her way to Europe. She fixed it with the Examiner, I believe, to come to Germany as a reporter of some kind, reporting on the housing situation in Germany. Some such foolish thing as that. Anyway, she was scheduled to leave N.Y. somewheres around the 8th or 9th of July, so the story goes. Therefore, you can well imagine Frank’s state of mind when that news of his going home came in – he sent a flock of wires, all saying, “Stop Martha!” Whether he succeeded in stopping her we know not as yet, but it would be certainly a set of odd circumstances if Martha did show up here, only to find Frank back in the U.S.
After Annie finally left us, who showed up – this time from the other area – but Eckie and Pidge. They were “home-sick” so Roy gave them a 3-day pass and sent them up with Spainy who had gone down there in a truck to get some things from Roy and Fad.
Loads of love,
.
