Hospital sending some two hundred messages to families of prisoners, courtesy of the American Red Cross and the American Telephone Co.
About a dozen generals arrived at the hospital from Manchuria; immediately they wanted to know how I got Judy to the West Coast, when they couldn't even get commercial travel. I had to let them guess.
Actually, Vivian's sister, Vera, was the girl friend of Col. Dudley Fay, the Chief of Army Air Transportation, and he had a son who had been a prisoner of the Germans. He was sympathetic and repeatedly told Vivian and Judy, "When your husbands, John and Gene, are liberated, I'm going to see that you girls get a ride to the West Coast." So Vivian and Judy arrived at Hamilton Field on time, but actually without any official orders. Of course, I couldn't tell the generals that; they would have court-martialed me.
Sept. 15, 45: "Pappy Boynton" and his men arrived at the St. Francis. I thanked God for that fearless aviator who had been awarded the Medal of Honor.
We were now getting daily calls from Colonels Dudley Fay and Larry
Smith in Washington, wanting to make arrangements to fly us to Walter
Reed Army Hospital. Our answers were always "NO!" Now we were in no
hurry! "We'll come by slow train with stops in Lincoln, Nebraska, and
River Forest, Illinois, to see our families."
Sept. 17, 45: We started east in our bedroom aboard the Union Pacific, through the gorgeous Rocky Mountains. When the train stopped at stations, I was amazed to see husky young women, balancing themselves along the tops of freight cars, brake persons, no less. It had taken many dedicated people, doing many strange and often hazardous jobs, to bring the war to an end. I felt grateful to each and every one of them.
We spent a couple of happy days with Judy's family in Lincoln and two more in River Forest, before proceeding on to Washington, where I became a patient on Wards 1 and 4 at Walter Reed General Hospital.
Judy lived in an efficiency apartment at 906 at 2000 Connecticut Ave., near Holton Arms School, where she taught during the war.
About the second week we were in Washington, one of Judy's teacher friends, Peggy Snow, arranged for us to get invitations
to her father's cocktail party for the top brass in Washington. General Snow, the Chief of Engineers in the Army, sat me in the center of the party, where I was a curiosity and subject to much questioning. Many important persons came to look me over and ask, "Are you having any difficulty adjusting?" My answer was always the same, "If somebody gave you a Lincoln car, would you have trouble adjusting?"