"I never heard a Red Crosser complain. After all, we were not in battle; and we were deeply infused with sense of patriotic dedication." (Memoir, page 6)

Virginia C. Allen

Detail from photo of Virginia Allen sitting with a radio mike on the "GI Jill" program, Agra, India. [Undated] War: World War II, 1939-1946 Service Location: Indian; China; Burma; Tibet; Nepal Status: Civilian Place of Birth: Fairbury, IL

Virginia Claudon worked as a hospital volunteer in the early days of the American involvement in World War II, but when her fiancé, flying a military mission in Africa, went down with his plane, she decided to volunteer for overseas duty with the Red Cross. An illness prevented her from shipping out to Europe, and the next available assignment was in India. She was stationed in Karachi and Agra (home to the Taj Mahal), where she made morale-boosting radio broadcasts to offset the Japanese doyen of propaganda, Tokyo Rose. Claudon was exposed to polio and was the target of rumors that she was having an affair with a married officer. To allay those stories, she pretended to be engaged to an old friend from the States who was serving on Okinawa. After the war, the two began seeing each other and were married.