Gretchen H. Yoffa Red Cross Clubmobile photographs and other material

Captain Gretchen Hope Yoffa, American Red Cross (7/8/1910 – 3/3/2003) was born in Brookline, Massachusetts to Pearl B. Yoffa, where she continued to live until her service in the Second World War with the American Red Cross Clubmobile in the European and Pacific theaters. Captain Yoffa was living in Dedham, Massachusetts outside of Boston when she resigned a teaching position to join the war effort in March 1943, along with most of her siblings that either fought or joined the Women’s Auxiliary Air Corps. Capt. Yoffa continued to serve the Red Cross until 1948, traveling through Western Europe, Japan and Korea.

In 1942, the United States Armed Forces requested that the Red Cross provide recreation and entertainment for troops in the various theaters of the war. Service clubs and aeroclubs were set-up in London and towns near military installations. These clubs were eventually transferred to mobile units to be “clubs on wheels,” hence the name Clubmobile, and they were intended to bring recreation and enjoyment to servicemen on bases right where they worked. The Clubmobiles had a small kitchen and a donut-maker, as well as seats that could be turned to sleeping cots if need be, and a loudspeaker with the latest music records. Women of the American Red Cross would receive their assignments and drive around the military installations and serve working men with donuts and coffee, turning up the music wherever they stopped. By 1944 in Europe, preparations were made to miniaturize this operation to get ready and join the post-invasion units on mainland Europe. The one large London Green Line buses that had been used in Britain were switched out for smaller trucks that could travel Western Europe and, after D-Day had finished and the military head pressed deep into Europe, the women of the Red Cross followed, refreshing soldiers that were on rest from the front. This activity carried on through the rest of the war, with some continuing during the occupation thereafter, overall traversing France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany. [http://www.clubmobile.org/history.html]