World War II: "Donut Dollies" & the American Red Cross - Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs - State of Delaware (2024)
Are you familiar with the Donut Dollies and the important role they played during World War II? Donut Dollies was the popular term used to refer to the American Red Cross women who volunteered to work overseas in mobile service clubs called clubmobiles. These Red Cross volunteers served to provide food, entertainment and a bit of a connection to home to servicemen stationed in Great Britain and those on many European battlefronts.
Once the attack on Pearl Harbor occurred on December 7, 1941, the American Red Cross (ARC) rapidly mobilized in order to fulfill the mandate of its 1905 congressional charter requiring that they supply voluntary aid to the sick and wounded of armies in time of war and to serve as a source of communication between the civilians of the United States and their military. The War Department decreed that the Red Cross would be the only civilian service organization permitted to work with overseas military personnel. Realizing that building and maintaining troop morale was an important component of victory, military leaders and the War Department assigned much of the responsibility for morale of the troops to the ARC, beginning during the early phases of troop buildup. Stateside, civilians volunteered to work in canteens and at transportation hubs, providing food and entertainment to the GIs who were in training or travelling. As servicemen started to go overseas, the need for volunteers escalated and the Red Cross created a sophisticated campaign to recruit women to serve in this role
The Red Cross had very high standards for their female volunteers, standards which were higher than those of the military. Applicants had to be college graduates, at least 25 years of age, have stellar reference letters, pass physical examinations and have an outstanding personality as demonstrated at personal interviews. With the rigorous selection process only one in six applicants made the cut.
Once accepted, the new volunteers were sent to Washington, D.C. to the American Red Cross training program located on the campus of American University. There the volunteers received multiple immunizations, were fitted for Red Cross uniforms and underwent several weeks of basic training in the history, policies and procedures of the ARC and the American military. There was considerable attention given to the appropriate way to wear the uniform, with ten pages of specific instructions in the Red Cross uniform manual – collars always to be pinned, no earrings, hair ornaments, “brilliant nail polish” or “excessive use of cosmetics.” After basic training some recruits received additional training in programs emphasizing such things as recreation or administration. Once training was completed the volunteers worked locally while awaiting their overseas orders.
Many servicemen were stationed in Great Britain either permanently or prior to being shipped to the European Theater. One necessity for troop morale was the opportunity to leave base and enjoy simple civilian pleasures. To prevent the soldiers from overwhelming local British facilities and to curtail disciplinary problems, the Red Cross created for the American servicemen on leave a massive network of hotels and recreation clubs. One of the best examples and most famous was the Rainbow Corner near Piccadilly Circus in London. Many GIs and airmen flooded this site to spend a few days of rest and recreation
However, there were many times when servicemen could not go to these permanent clubs and the mobile service club served as a way to reach servicemen in airfields, camps and other theaters of war. The idea of a mobile service club, or clubmobile, was provided by Harvey D. Gibson, a retired U.S. Army colonel, prominent New York banker and the American Red Cross Commissioner to Great Britain. Clubmobiles travelled throughout Great Britain and Europe between late 1942 until 1946.
Most clubmobiles were single decker English Green Line buses fitted with coffee and doughnut making equipment. The clubmobiles also carried chewing gum, cigarettes, magazines and newspapers, a phonograph with loudspeakers and records. A lounge in the back of the bus provided a place to sit and talk. The buses were driven by British drivers. Perhaps most importantly, each clubmobile carried three American Red Cross women volunteers. Popularly referred to as “donut dollies” since one of their biggest tasks was making and serving doughnuts to the servicemen, these volunteers were the actual stars of the show. They provided a little touch of home to many a home sick GI.
Doughnuts dominated the activities of the clubmobilers. Next to the women themselves, the doughnuts and the coffee served with them were among the GI’s most beloved symbols of home and they also became the trademark of the wartime Red Cross. The Doughnut Corporation of America loaned the Red Cross 468 doughnut machines, each which could turn out 48 dozen each hour. As time went on, these proved inadequate in keeping up with the demands of the soldiers and the Red Cross set up central bakeries to supply the majority of the doughnuts served to the GIs. Just how many doughnuts are we talking about? A report for December 1944 showed that 205 Red Cross women in Great Britain served 4,659,728 doughnuts to the troops.
Red Cross clubmobiles did not just serve in Great Britain. After the invasion of Normandy in June 1944, ten groups of clubmobilers with eight converted GMC trucks per group were sent into France. These clubmobiles, driven and staffed by teams of three American women, traveled with the rear echelon of the Army, receiving their orders from the Army. The women were stationed in nearby towns and would drive to different bases. There they performed the same duties they had while in Great Britain – making and serving doughnuts and coffee, serving snacks, talking with servicemen, playing music and delivering a little slice of home. The clubmobilers served throughout France, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg until VE Day in 1945 and continued to service in post war Great Britain and the Army of Occupation in Germany until 1946.
In addition to the Red Cross clubs and clubmobiles, the Red Cross served many other roles during World War II. Beginning with the invasion of China by Japan in 1937 and then the subsequent invasions of various European countries by Hitler’s armies, the International Red Cross became the primary provider of relief supplies for civilian victims. The American Red Cross played a leading role in this international effort. The U.S. government responded to these hostilities by beginning preparations for possible American involvement in the wars in Europe and Asia. At the request of the government, in early 1941 the ARC began their Blood Donor Service in order to produce plasma for the armed forces
On the homefront millions of Red Cross volunteers served in the war effort by providing aid and comfort to military personnel and their families, serving in hospitals experiencing severe staffing shortages, providing first aid and water safety training, conducting scrap drives, organizing victory gardens, initiating educational programs in-home nutrition and producing emergency supplies for victims of war. The ARC also recruited thousands of nurses to serve in the Army and Navy Nurses Corps.
The ARC served American prisoners of war by being a conduit for communication between the prisoners and their families and by providing essential care packages to the prisoners, as well as the victims of several German concentration camps, though many captors thwarted these efforts.
Red Cross war time activity reached its peak in 1945, at which time 7.5 million volunteers and 39,000 paid staff were supporting the war effort. By the time of the end of the war, the American public had contributed over $784 million in support of Red Cross activities.
Red Cross World War II Statistics Over the course of the war years, 86 Red Cross workers-52 women and 34 men-lost their lives as the result of their wartime service. Statistics are given in the table below.
Total contributions received during war years
$784,992,995
Greatest number of chapters (1943 and 1944)
3,757
Greatest number of adult members (1945)
36,645,333
Greatest number of Junior Red Cross members (1945)
19,905,400
Greatest number of volunteers (1945)
7,500,700
Greatest number of paid staff (1945)
39,032
Number of Red Cross certified nurses in service with the military
71,000
Number of service personnel receiving Red Cross aid
16,113,000
Messages made between servicemen and families
42,000,000
Families aided by the Home Service
1,700,000
Tons of supplies shipped overseas
300,460
Pints of blood collected for military use
13,400,000
Number of blood donors
6,600,000
Number of foreign countries in which Red Cross operated
50+
American Red Cross war casualties – male
34
American Red Cross war casualties – female
52
Carolyn Apple Author
Dr. Carolyn Apple was a retired Dover-area emergency medicine physician and Delaware Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs volunteer.
The images in this display were selected from the William D. Willis World War II Photographic Collection, one of the permanent collections preserved by the Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs. Mr. Willis of Dover, Del. served as a photographic technician with the Army Air Force during the Second World War.
Next to the women themselves, the doughnuts and the coffee served with them were among the GI's most beloved symbols of home and they also became the trademark of the wartime Red Cross. The Doughnut Corporation of America loaned the Red Cross 468 doughnut machines, each which could turn out 48 dozen each hour.
Donut Dollies traveled by helicopter, truck and jeep to reach servicemen, and they too experienced the challenges and tragedies of war. They sometimes slept in bunkers instead of their beds during aerial attacks. They comforted those who had seen the horrors of war up-close.
Assistance included financial aid, food, clothing, medical and sanitary supplies, ambulance and automotive equipment, and transportation services. At war's end, the Red Cross distributed 9 million surplus POW packages to displaced persons.
The Doughnut consists of two concentric rings: a social foundation, to ensure that no one is left falling short on life's essentials, and an ecological ceiling, to ensure that humanity does not collectively overshoot the planetary boundaries that protect Earth's life-supporting systems.
The organization started charging only because the U.S. Secretary of War asked it to. British soldiers had to pay for their snacks, and the free doughnuts for Americans were causing tensions. So the Red Cross complied, after protesting to no avail.
Young girls played with dolls and apparently resembled hand trucks enough to adopt the name dolly. Source. 'Dolly', a derogatory name for women in the 19th century is a potential candidate for this handy piece of material handling equipment.
There are appliance dollies drum dollies, machine rollers, three point tri-glides, toe jacks, heavy duty dollies, specialty dollies, piano dollies, chair dollies, and table dollies. There are so many kinds of dollies that you may want to go on a spending spree.
In his autobiography, Dunkin' Donuts founder William Rosenberg claimed he wanted to make sure franchises were “hospitable places for the police” who “protected the stores.” As late-night food options expanded, police came to be able to eat other things, but the joke stuck.
During World War II, the military also asked the Red Cross to organize a Blood Donor Service with a goal of processing blood into dried plasma. The organization collected about 13.4 million pints of blood from 6.6 million donors over the course of the war.
Red Cross parcel refers to packages containing mostly food, tobacco and personal hygiene items sent by the International Association of the Red Cross to prisoners of war during the First and Second World Wars, as well as at other times.
It is prohibited: a. to make improper use of the distinctive emblem of the red cross, red crescent, red crystal or of other emblems, signs or signals provided for by the Geneva Conventions or the Additional Protocols.
Elvis Presley, was known to hang out at his favorite donut emporium. . .Bruce Jones' Southern Maid Donuts out on Shreveport's Greenwood Rd. And to this day, the only commercial endorsem*nt Elvis ever did was for his favorite donut. . . Southern Maid Donuts.
In an interview with Hero Complex, "Iron Man 2" director Jon Favreau revealed why a hung over Tony Stark ends up in the donut hole of Los Angeles' iconic Randy's Donuts over the course of the movie. "The idea was, 'What's this guy like the morning after?'
Turns out, the connection of police to doughnuts was born from necessity well over 50 years ago. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, before the debut of 24-hour fast food and convenience stores, doughnuts were one of the few late-night options for cops working the graveyard shift.
Donut is an alternate spelling of doughnut. Some dictionaries point out that donut is rarely used outside the United States. All of them recognize doughnut as the main spelling, as do some of the more popular style guides. Doughnut might be the spelling you should use if you want to be sure you're not making a mistake.
The resulting space – the doughnut – is where inclusive and sustainable economic development takes place. It implies no limit to human well-being: indeed, within this space is humanity's best chance to thrive.
The diagram was developed by University of Oxford economist Kate Raworth in her 2012 Oxfam paper A Safe and Just Space for Humanity and elaborated upon in her 2017 book Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist and paper.
Simply put, the Red Cross does not offer long term support, and with their lack of specialized staff, their abilities as first responders is limited. When the Haiti earthquake struck, the ARC raised 488 million dollars, money that the organization had no clue what to do with.
Here's the (unfortunate) truth, per an email from Krispy Kreme's communications department: "The Hot Light signals that donuts are hot and fresh coming off the line, not a free donut.
According to the Los Angeles Times, it was shops run by Cambodian refugees in Los Angeles in the 1970s that popularized the usage of pink boxes. The shop owners decided to use pink boxes over more expensive white boxes in order to avoid skimping on ingredients.
A hand truck features a vertical, L-shaped design with an upright handle, two wheels, and a small bottom ledge whereas a dolly has a raised, flat platform that typically has four wheels.
A hand truck, also known as a hand trolley, dolly, stack truck, trundler, box cart, sack barrow, cart, sack truck, two wheeler, or bag barrow, is an L-shaped box-moving handcart with handles at one end, wheels at the base, with a small ledge to set objects on, flat against the floor when the hand-truck is upright.
At first glance, an appliance dolly may look a lot like a regular hand truck or utility dolly. Appliance dollies feature straps to help secure and protect your bulky item. Many appliance dolly also commonly feature an additional handhold to help with steadying the load and moving on an incline.
Dollies allow individuals to move extremely heavy items without the help of a crew. In turn, this not only makes your move go by quicker, but it also relieves the pain carrying heavy boxes and furniture can cause on your back.
From doll + -y, from the given name Dorothy, originally applied either to a woman or female pet or to a children's toy, and expanded to refer to various types of contrivances or devices.
By doing so, they ensure that the trunk is closed and that no one will jump out of it. But the action goes one step further: it is meant to ensure the officer's own safety. Touching the trunk in a defined area leaves their fingerprints on the car. If they were to be attacked, the vehicle could be linked with the crime.
The DEA. The abbreviation DEA refers to The Drug Enforcement Administration. Cops get referred to as 12 which mean drug enforcement officers, especially the narcotics officers. The slang 12 is most used by drug smugglers to warn their clients or fellow peddlers of approaching police officers.
Cops often touch the tail light of a car they pull over so that, if something were to happen to the officer during the traffic stop, their interaction with the driver could be traced back to the fingerprints left on the vehicle.
The Red Cross role is to independently verify the emergency, enabling the service member's commander to make an educated decision regarding emergency leave and then to provide transportation assistance and/or financial assistance if needed.
The Red Cross provides support to active-duty military members, National Guard and Reserve members, veterans and their families. We also provide emergency communication services, support for the sick and wounded at military and veterans hospitals and assistance in obtaining emergency financial support.
British Red Cross food parcels played a vital role in helping to keep prisoners alive. The Red Cross also sent out next of kin parcels from families, educational book parcels, and even activity parcels containing sports equipment.
Soldiers soon found a number of non-sexual uses for condoms because they were readily available. Soldiers used condoms to protect their “other weapons” by covering the muzzles of their gun to prevent mud and other material from clogging the barrel.
September 4, 1881: Red Cross undertakes its first disaster relief effort aiding victims of Michigan forest fires. March 16, 1882: After years of relentless efforts by Clara Barton, the U.S. Senate ratifies the Geneva Convention of 1864. May 31, 1889: Red Cross responds to Johnstown, Pa., flood that kills over 2,000.
Even though thousands of items became scarce during the war, only those most critical to the war effort were rationed. Key goods such as sugar, tires, gasoline, meat, coffee, butter, canned goods and shoes came under rationing regulations.
When Red Cross workers go into war zones, they are putting their lives on the line to help other people during their times of need. Sometimes they are shot or killed serving other people. This is why they are trained to work quickly to help people in these areas.
Yes, according to the British Red Cross, Prison Architect's use of a red cross to denote health violates the Geneva Conventions. The little red cross is actually the emblem of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), not part of the public domain.
The Red Cross is proud that an average of 90 cents of every dollar we spend is invested in delivering care and comfort to those in need. The remaining 10 cents helps keep the entire Red Cross running by supporting routine, but indispensable, day-to-day business operations.
This Elvis burger will get you all shook up. The peanut butter, bacon and banana sandwich was a favorite of Elvis to the point where the sandwich often bears his name. There is a book about him and his mother, Gladys Presley, that says he talked feverishly until dawn while wolfing down the sandwiches.
Books on Presley's favorite foods and culinary tastes, as well as other published reports on his taste for peanut butter and banana sandwiches with or without bacon, have made the sandwich widely associated with Presley. It is often referred to using his name.
Chestnut already holds a world-record for eating 55 glazed donuts in eight minutes. That's approximately 14,795 calories. “Joey Chestnut is known as the black hole of donut holes," Major League Eating emcee Sam Barclay said in announcing the competition.
1. In 1673, the first doughnut shop in the United States was opened by a Dutch woman named Mrs.Anna Joralemon, on Broadway (near Maiden Lane) in New York City. When you do something that awesome, you'll get a street named after you, just like Mrs.
On the back Homer pledges his soul to Marge, and the jury finds that his soul is the property of Marge, not the devil's. The devil begrudgingly agrees, but instead of taking Homer's soul, he turns his head into a big donut.
Either as a sign of support, or to let the lead officer know they have someone on their back, so they can follow each other in the dark or low light environment.
The early Americans took the fact that the treats were fried in oil quite literally, naming them olykoeks, translating to "oily cakes." The word 'donut' came soon after when a woman is said to have put nuts in the dough before frying it.
A doughnut is a decent snack for a graveyard shift. It's a fresh, easily obtained source of calories that a busy officer might need for a night of busting punks. When the action dies down, coffee offers a burst of caffeinated energy to help cops get through their shifts.
But in fact doughnuts didn't come into their own until World War I, when millions of homesick American doughboys met millions of doughnuts in the trenches of France. They were served up by women volunteers who even brought them to the front lines to give soldiers a tasty touch of home.
In the United States, the donut's roots date to the 1700s with the Dutch settlers' olykoek (oil cake), the “grandpa of the donut”. In the early 19th century, donuts were mentioned in American food chapters of English cookbooks.
In the late 1940s and early 1950s, before the debut of 24-hour fast food and convenience stores, doughnuts were one of the few late-night options for cops working the graveyard shift. In order to be ready for the breakfast rush, doughnut shops opened well before dawn.
Your standard playing card is made by joining two layers of paper, laminated, and then glued. What was sent to POWs, though, was anything but standard. When water was applied to these special POW cards, the layers peeled away to reveal a piece of a map of escape routes in Germany.
“Doughnuts are deep-fried cakes with a long European history and roots in still earlier Middle Eastern cuisine. They were introduced to America by the Dutch in New Netherlands to America as oliekoecken (oil cakes or fried cakes).
The earliest “doughnuts” actually didn't have holes. Many believe Dutch settlers brought the first olykoek (“oil-ly cake”) to America when they landed in New Amsterdam (New York). These doughnuts were the same shape and size as our modern donuts, but they weren't shaped like a ring.
The early Americans took the fact that the treats were fried in oil quite literally, naming them olykoeks, translating to "oily cakes." The word 'donut' came soon after when a woman is said to have put nuts in the dough before frying it.
Using a Finger for the Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus Test at a DWI Stop. The HGN test measures the steadiness of your eyes while you follow an object with your eyes. Officers often use their finger or perhaps a pen for this test because they can easily see your eyes while providing an object for you to follow.
The ace of spades, while not a symbol of superstitious fear to the Viet Cong forces, did help the morale of American soldiers. Some U.S. soldiers and Marines were reportedly sticking this card in their helmet band as a sort of anti-peace sign.
Large numbers of the Russian prisoners ended up in special sections of German POW camps. Held by the Nazis to be racially and politically inferior, they were starved and brutalised. The appalling suffering of these POWs was witnessed by British and Commonwealth prisoners held in separate compounds.
In the early days of the Iraq war, soldiers carried playing cards showing the "most wanted" members of Saddam Hussein's regime. Now the Army is issuing decks to help them memorize Russian and Chinese tanks and rocket launchers.
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