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Show Red Cross Girls j At Work In Africa American Red Cross girls, arriving arriv-ing at an African base were "perfectly "per-fectly spoiled with attention from the American soldiers who had not seen an English-speaking woman wo-man for months and months" reports re-ports Miss Josephine MacNamara, former field representative for the Red Cross in California, in her first letter received at the Pacific area office. Their service began on the voyage over because the transport commander virtually assigned the recreation program to the Red Cross girls aboard, appointing: Miss MacNamara as a task force commander. "On the third day out," she writes, "we distributed the Red Cross soldier kits. If anyone has anv doubt as to the need or appreciation ap-preciation by the men of these ditty bags it should be forgotten. The commander called a meeting of as many men as could crowd into the mess hall, and he talked to them about five minutes about the Red Cross and then I was introduced to them. "I had all my gals shined up and in uniform for the occasion and they looked so smart. We didn't use the approach of the benefactor, bene-factor, but spoke to them informally inform-ally about what we were planning to do overseas and in closing told them that aboard for each of them was a token of good will from some Red Cross volunteer woman at home. The boys really loved them. "All Africa is amazingly filthy. The Americans have taken the town by storm. The day we arrived ar-rived we rolled in via army truck and Arabs and donkeys and dirt, and dogs and beggars went a-fly-ing. Everywhere a welcome. The American soldiers already here who had come in with the invasion couldn't contain themselves the first English speaking women they had seen for months' and months for most of them. "Of course, we are perfectly spoiled with attention. However, if we did nothing more for them than to stop and talk to them we (Continued on last pnge) V 1 Red Cross At Work (Continued trom first page) would have fulfilled our objective. Morale is high here and the general is thoroughly sold on our program. v "We are operating several clubs in town, servicing I cannot tell how many men. At our club we have a theatre which seats 1500 men and we are putting in showers, show-ers, an information service and writing room. American home atmosphere is the thing, providing as much contrast from the front line as possible. I cannot tell you how much this means to the men who come in from areas where they cannot have these things. "To tell this story back home would be sufficient in our opinions to raise the quota for our war fund without telling about the other services of the Red Cross. We have two dances each week. French girls are invited by invitation invita-tion personally delivered by one of our French staff. They come, but it is the custom to bring their mothers and their fathers and their brothers and sisters. "The military welfare load is heavy also in this area. We have a field director as part of our staff assigned to the club and cables go out of here daily about Soldier Brown's concern over his wife and expected baby, allotment problems, no word from home, etc. When you can deliver to Soldier Brown word that he is the father of a bouncing boy in Napa, California, Cali-fornia, wife doing nicely, no need for concern that is something greater than I can adequately express ex-press these thousands of miles away over here. There will be a great story to tell about the work of the Red Cross after this scrap is over. "Our clubmobiles are here now, and we will soon have them up to the front with coffee and doughnuts, dough-nuts, the glamor gals, and entertainment. enter-tainment. This program, serving the front echelons, is the one that will be thought of more after the war is over than any other in my opinion. I drove one of them the other day and they are easy to handle, but it is more a job for a man than a woman in this area." V |