#31- The Trip Over

    ◆    75 Years Ago
    ◆    14 - 23 September 1944

10th Armored en route to and arriving in Europe.

    •    September 16, 1944

Dora came to visit.  (Diary)

Dora arrived only 3 days after the 10th was on its way. Did Buddy say to her, “Go spend some time with my mother. She will be at her wit’s end?" Had some kind of connection been made between Beula and Dora in that brief visit at the end of June? Did Dora know that for the marriage to work in the long run she needed to find out more about Buddy’s family and what the future might hold? Just by the fact that she had been living in Georgia, was doing things that introduced her to a wider-than-just-Jewish group of people, and then found one she married, would reinforce the idea that she had moved beyond her closed-off Brooklyn upbringing. Whatever the case, it is interesting  that she was open to this visit.

On that same day, Nichols in Impact! Reports that the 2nd ship (the USAT Brazil) caught up to the whole convoy and experienced some type of storm, possibly a hurricane. (Nichols)

    •    September 18, 1944

Went to visit Mabel together and then a show (Diary)

Attacked by U-boats, destroyers ran them off. One of convoy’s tankers torpedoed. (Nichols)

“Appetites dwindled” as ship constantly shifted positions zig-zagging maneuver (Nichols)

    ✓    20 September 1944
    ✓    Company C Morning Report

At sea aboard Brazil enroute to European theater. Weather favorable. (MR)

    ✓    22 September 1944
    ✓    Company C Morning Report

Dropped anchor at Weymouth Bay England (MR)

    ✓    23 September 1944
    ✓    Company C Morning Report

0730- Sailed for France
1945- Debarked Brazil via LST
2005- Arrived. Truck convoy to 2.1 miles NW, Quettehou, FR
2350- Set up bivouac. Weather rainy. (MR)

        •    September 24, 1944

Dora left on 2.15 train (Diary)

    ✓    24 September 1944
    ✓    Company C Morning Report

Began field duties at bivouac site. (MR)

Quettehou is on the eastern coast of the Cotentin or Cherbourg Peninsula. The headquarters of the 10th Armored Division was about 4 1/2 miles west of there in Teurtheville. It would make sense that the whole area was an extended bivouac for the newly arriving troops. Company C would remain at Quettehou until the end of October.

[Diary= diary entry from Beula Keller Lehman

MR= 80th Medical Battalion, Co. C Morning Reports

Nichols= Impact! The Battle Story of the 10th Armored Division]