out toward the end of the train. A man standing near volunteered to take the coffee, telling the other man that he had been through a big day. He stopped in his tracks and said, “Hell! What do you think these boys have been through?” And with that remark, he ran down the platform with his jar of hot coffee. After a brutally difficult first month of fighting in Normandy, British forces liberated the key town of Caen on July 9, the day before the Canteen’s Honor Roll reached its northeast extremity. Telegraph | July 10, 1944 Forty ladies and men arrived at the Canteen early this morning from Burwell, a community 125 miles northeast of here, loaded with supplies and cash. They brought with them 15 birthday cakes, 20 dozen cookies, 14 dozen eggs, 6 gallon pickles, 25 pounds of coffee, 3 pounds tea, 17 pounds but- ter, 5 dozen lemons and 2 loaves of rye bread. They
donated $160.75, out of which they bought 1,000 bottles milk, 150 loaves of bread and 85 pounds of meat after their arrival here. The Telegraph shone its spotlight on two key groups of Canteen workers in the weeks after the U.S. Army’s July 18 crash through the German lines at St.-Lo. That achievement, in which North Platte’s Company D and the other 1st Battalion companies of North Platte Gen. Butler Miltonberger’s 134th Infantry spearheaded the July 15 capture of Hill 122, ended the post-D-Day deadlock in Normandy and triggered the Allies’ rapid liberation of France, including Paris on Aug. 25. Telegraph | July 27, 1944 Day after day there is a group of women at the North Platte Canteen that receive little if any notice, but they are a very necessary part of the organization and are responsible to a great extent for the popularity of the Canteen. They are the first to contact the men and women in service that enter the Canteen. They meet the trains with small baskets of fruit, candy and other items, tell the boys where the Canteen is located and what to expect when they enter. If there are men on the train that cannot get off, baskets well filled with oranges, apples, tobacco, cookies, matches, magazines and other items are placed on the cars by this group of women. The group referred to is that responsible for the platform work. During the hot days, the bricks
Candid shot of military personnel outside the Canteen, circa 1944.
on the platform become almost unbearable many times each day. There is not a breath of air between the cars. In the winter, when the snow and cold weather make that same platform seem like a re- frigeration plant, the women meet every train with a smile on their faces and invite the boys inside for ever-welcome lunch. This group of ladies is deserving of special men- tion when one talks of the many things that make the Canteen such a success. Telegraph | Aug. 2, 1944 To the casual visitor at the Canteen watching the long lines of service men and women being served at the tables, everything seems to move along smoothly with no prearranged plans. This is far from true, and a remarkable part of Continued on page 80
A military hospital train stops in North Platte, circa 1944.
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