Free Blood Line by John J. Davis

mission during the flight. The flight was terrifying because the pilots flew very low over the war-torn fields and landed in a field with lanterns marking the area. Other members of the organization met the plane. She and the other women on the plane dressed as nurses. Two of the men dressed as doctors and the other two as German soldiers. They were loaded onto trucks marked as medical transport and driven into Frankfurt.”
    “This is crazy. They could’ve been shot down or captured, and all for twenty prisoners!” Leecy interrupted.
    “Well maybe, but sometimes one’s life is worth the risk. Anyway, at that time the city of Frankfurt had been bombed, but not to the point of complete destruction. The heavy bombing of Frankfurt didn’t occur until 1944. Leona told me she was most afraid at the first checkpoint, but the medically marked vehicle was waved through with minimal inspection.This was two years before Patton and his Third Army arrived in Frankfurt, so the German army held the city, okay?”
    “I’m with you.”
    “Leona said she and her group were targeting a prisoner holding facility in the heart of the city. Once the truck they were traveling in cleared the first checkpoint, the truck stopped, and the second phase of the plan went into action. The drivers removed the medical Red Cross insignias from the doors of the truck, revealing the swastikas that had been painted underneath. The truck was now displaying the proper markings for military transport. The men inside the rear of the truck tore off their medical insignias and armbands and became officers of the SS. The women remained disguised as nurses. It was common practice for the Nazis to bring in medical teams to calm and reassure prisoners. Leona’s group used that to their advantage. They drove into Frankfurt and back out with twenty rescued Jews. They made it back to the plane and flew home to Sicily. Not only that, Leona’s first husband was among the men she helped escape that night.”
    “What? Great Grandpa Ernst was among that group of people? I mean, that’s pretty amazing. Did she marry him right away? She must’ve been scared the entire time.”
    “Yeah, I think she was scared, but Leona was tough. She wanted to help. She didn’t marry Ernst till after the war. She said they exchanged names on the trip out of Frankfurt. But he, along with the other rescued Jews, was put on a ship bound for the US. When he arrived in the States, he promptly enlisted in the army. He was sent back to fight in the war a year later. Ernst found her after the war by tracing her through the USO.”
    “What’s the other mission she told you about?” Leecy asked.
    “There were dozens of missions, I knew, but the only other one she told me about in any detail was in the winter of 1944. By then, the Free French and Allied troops had invaded France and taken back Paris. Leona’s USO group was stationed somewhere outside of Paris. The mission she volunteered for was the rescue of two OSS officers who were trapped in Frankfurt. Two men had been forward scouts for the pending military action by Allied forces that would eventually lead to Patton’s Third Army rolling into Frankfurt, and these two OSS officers had been pinned down in the city, unable to effect escape. The city had been ravaged by bombings, and what was once a beautiful medieval city was left in ruins.
    “For this mission, Leona posed as a German citizen. She carried false papers hidden in her purse saying that one of the men was her husband and the other her brother. She had to walk into the city this time, but with the proper papers, she said she could go anywhere. Leona told me how people, families, just seemed to wander in and out of what was left of the city seeking shelter, food, clothing, anything. She’d never seen such destruction and hopelessness before, but she had a mission to complete and that helped her maintain focus. To find the OSS men, she used the description they’d given of