The Valentine’s Day Petition The frost on the windowpanes of the commandant’s office at Camp Crossville, Tennessee, looked like shattered glass. It was February 14, 1946—the first Valentine’s Day of...
The Harbor of Numbness The morning fog over New York Harbor on December 11, 1944, was thick and gray, smelling of salt, coal smoke, and the deep, unfamiliar cold of...
The Shadows of Guard Towers The transport truck rattled violently as it struck another pothole on the red-dirt roads of central Louisiana. Inside the canvas-covered bed, forty-three women sat in...
The Great Dust The engine of the olive-drab Army transport truck backfired, a sharp, metallic crack that made twenty-two-year-old Greta Hoffman flinch. She squeezed her eyes shut, her fingers tightening...
The Smell of American Soil The cargo hold of the liberty ship had smelled of rust, bilge water, and the sour, crowded panic of forty-three women who had spent three...
The heavy canvas tarp at the back of the transport truck rattled violently as the vehicle bounced down the unpaved access road. Inside, forty-three women sat packed shoulder-to-shoulder on wooden...
The Altar of Submission The copper vats of the Corpo d’Assistenza Femminile in Naples had smelled of wood ash, bruised bay leaves, and the sharp, green bite of olive oil...
The Dust of Texas The train hissed to a violent, shuddering halt, venting a great cloud of steam that smelled of coal smoke and hot iron. Inside the slatted wooden...
The Gray Moss of Mississippi The canvas flap of the transport truck slapped against the wooden frame, rhythmically slicing the humid air into suffocating gulps. Inside, twenty-three pairs of boots...
THE AMERICAN DIET The recruiting officer in Nuremberg had been very specific about what happened to women who fell into enemy hands. “The Americans are weak, decadent, and desperate,” he...