There was no loud cheering, no blare of bands, or signs of the conquering hero, when the American soldiers set foot on the land they had crossed the ocean to conquer, only before their eyes floating in the morning breeze were the stars and stripes.
The advanced guard continued the ascent over winding roads and past villages onward toward the Rhine. First marched the infantry, then followed the artillery, engineers, signal battalions and last the hospital units. And accompanying one of the final units was Sonya Clark and her Red Cross group.
Never were any of them to forget their journey into the city of Coblenz, which, situated midway between Mayence and Cologne, just where the Moselle flows into the Rhine, was to form the chief city for the American Army of Occupation.
As a matter of fact Sonya and her Red Cross unit had not dreamed of being able to form a part of the army on their first approach to the Rhine, believing that the time spent by them in Luxemburg would delay them too seriously. But, because the German army was slower in accomplishing its retreat than had been anticipated, the Third American Army did not draw near the city of Coblenz until the close of the second week of December.
It was Sunday when they started their victorious march from the French country, it was Sunday when they entered the valley of the Rhine.
Every acre of the valley appeared to be under cultivation; there were fields of winter wheat and walled vineyards lining the roads. Beyond, the hills were covered with dense forests, farther on were the tall summits of the ancient castles of the Rhine.
Varying impressions the journey into Germany made upon this particular group of American girls.
"I declare it is unendurable to me to see how prosperous and peaceful the German county appears in comparison with the French!" Nona Davis exclaimed, staring out of the window of their Red Cross automobile, as their car drove through one of the small towns not far from the larger city.
Not many grown persons were in sight, but children were swarming everywhere and blonde heads were sticking out of the windows of nearly all the little houses along the road.
"I don't think the children look nearly as hungry as we had been led to expect," she added with a bitterness of tone unlike Nona's usual attitude of mind. But then she had been nursing in Europe for four years, since the very outbreak of the war and had been an eyewitness to untold suffering and privation.