Harriet Pinkston ENGELHARDT

Source : laura2400

Parents : Samuel Martin "Sam" & Annie Floyd Pinkston ENGELHARDT

Frères : Samuel Martin "Sam" Jr

Source : Marshall and Mary McIntyre

 CEMTERY TEMPORARY of Saint Avold Cemetery, Metz N°3574

Story of Cemetery Temporary 

LORRAINE AMERICAN CEMETERY of Saint Avold

Harriet “Hattie” Pinkston Englehardt endeared herself to the Japanese-American combat troops she followed across Europe in her Red Cross Clubmobile. 

She was born on Aug. 2, 1919, to Samuel Martin Engelhardt and Annie Floyd Pinkston Engelhardt. Her father was an insurance agent and her mother was a homemaker to Harriet and her older brother, Samuel Jr. 

Harriet grew up in Montgomery, Alabama, and attended Hollins College in Virginia and Black Mountain College in North Carolina. 

After the war began, she worked as an airplane mechanic at Maxwell Field in Montgomery. She joined the American Red Cross in May 1944 and was sent to Europe to operate a Clubmobile, making coffee, frying donuts, and putting on movies and shows for U.S. troops in France and Germany. 

“She and her group bedded down in pup-tents and trucks and slogged through mud and battled bees just like the GI’s they served,” a Red Cross Bulletin said. “She went so close to the front, sometimes she was flagged down by Germans eager to surrender.” 

On Oct. 26, 1945, six months after the war ended in Europe, she was killed in a jeep accident near Munich, Germany. She lost control of the jeep she was driving in a heavy rainstorm less than a week before she was scheduled to return home. 

Harriet, 26, was buried in the American Cemetery and Memorial in Lorraine, France. She has a cenotaph in Oakwood Annex Cemetery in Montgomery. 

After her death, her parents received a letter from the men of the 522nd Field Artillery Battalion, a unit of Japanese-American soldiers who distinguished themselves on the European front. 

“Our battalion was one of the first to learn of your daughter’s death and it was a great shock to all of us,” their letter read. 

“We really thought the world of our three Red Cross girls, Hattie, Phoebe and Mary, who used to bring us doughnuts and coffee. We extend to you our deepest sympathies. 

“Your daughter did more than her share for our country during the war. We know for we were here and saw. 

“May God bless you all.” 

Source : laura2400

Source : laura2400

Source : Ancestry