Kick
Page 21
She told her parents that she was still in touch with Billy, who was standing for Parliament: ‘He still says that he is waiting for me to come to England.’ She told them that he wanted her company ‘more than ever because I would be such a help in advising him and helping him with his speeches’.15 Her time in Washington and her long talks with Jack and Inga had politicized her further. She saw that she would make a good partner for Billy, and she thought again of how he had talked to her about Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire making Chatsworth into a centre of political power.
John White was to be transferred to Northern Ireland with the Marines, and as a parting gift he bought Kick a new nightgown. He teased her but loved her in her extra-long white nightgowns. They had made a pact that if she had not found herself another husband in five years’ time they would marry. He wrote in his diary: ‘KK WILL MARRY ME in 1947.’16 He took with him a photograph of her on Jones Beach, the scene of that happy day.
In December she cut off her long, tawny hair, adopting the new short ‘windswept’ style. She went alone to a dinner at the Chevy Chase Club wearing a spectacular candy-striped dress which caused a stir. She was becoming confident in her ability to be herself without Jack and Inga at her side. In February 1943, she made a radio address, and though she felt nervous it only fuelled her ambition to do better next time. Kick was hatching a plan to be a reporter in London. She told her parents that she was arranging meetings with editors and publishers to pitch her storylines. The editor of Women’s Home Companion had agreed to a meeting and she was determined to make him realize that it was ‘essential for them to have a correspondent in London. Keep your fingers crossed and say a prayer.’17 What she was also doing was letting her parents know that, whatever anyone said, she would return to England.
Now that John White had left, she was finally on her own, though it wasn’t long before she found a new admirer. She was seeing much of Lord and Lady Halifax. He was now Ambassador in DC. They remembered her fondly from her London days. She dined at the Embassy and sat next to their eldest son, Lieutenant Charles Wood of the Royal Horse Guards, who was on leave after three years in the Middle East. Their second son, Peter, had recently been killed fighting in Egypt, and their youngest son, Richard, had almost lost his life in the same campaign – Kick told her parents that he had lost both his legs and was coming to America to recuperate. She was concerned about Lady Halifax, who ‘looks awfully ill’.18
Lieutenant Richard Wood was born, like Kick, in 1920. He was to become very important to her. A tall, handsome Eton and Oxford man of great charm and courage, he served in the King’s Royal Rifle Corps. His legs had to be amputated after a Stuka bomb fell on him. He often joked that he was very lucky that it had failed to detonate, and that he had had such a rough time at Eton that nothing else could be as bad. In fact, he was president of the elite society Pop at Eton and a good cricketer. He toured America to show war veterans how to cope with artificial limbs. He had his own artificial legs made slightly smaller than his real ones, to reduce his height from 6 foot 4 to 6 foot 1. He was not the sort to feel sorry for himself. Richard fell madly in love with Kick, and she never once considered his disability an impediment to his sexual appeal. She greatly admired his courage and humour. But he was also a reminder of Billy, and all that she felt she had lost when she left England.
John White, meanwhile, made an ignominious return to Washington, pending an investigation for espionage. He had been caught photographing British destroyers and suspicions were aroused that he might be a spy. He was imprisoned in the Washington Navy Yard, where Kick visited him. By now, the romance was truly over, John’s disgrace the final nail in the coffin, but the friendship continued. He recalled that she talked increasingly about Billy. She was at last on her way back to England.
34
Red Cross Worker of World War II
Received from Military Liaison Officer, American Red Cross, New York Port of Embarkation, the following equipment:
1 Belt Pistol
I Helmet Steel M-1
1 Liner Helmet M-1, New Type
1 Can Meat M-1932
1 Canteen M-1910
1 Cover Canteen Dismounted M-1910
1 Cup M-1910
1 Fork
1 Haversack
1 Knife
1 Spoon
1 Headband Adj. New Type
1 Neckband, No. 4 Med.
1 Roll, Bedding
1 Pouch, First Aid Packet M-24
1 First Aid Packet M-24
Date: 6/21/43 Signature: Kathleen A. Kennedy1
At 7.15 p.m. on 23 June 1943, Kick Kennedy boarded the Queen Mary. She was equipped very differently from the time she had set off for England as the Ambassador’s daughter decked out in fashionable hat and furs. Now she was a volunteer for the American Red Cross, dressed in a drab blue-grey uniform of skirt and jacket and hat. For once, she was like every other girl and not a celebrated Kennedy. She wrote to her family to tell them that, despite its being the hottest day of the year, she was dressed in winter uniform and a raincoat and wore a tin helmet. Like the other girls, she carried a gas mask and a first-aid kit strapped to her waist, and had packed her few belongings into a 35-pound musette bag.2
Kick’s previous experiences of ocean liners was full of glamour and fun, dancing in the ballrooms, dining in the grand salon, swimming in the pool and promenading on the decks. She could hardly believe her eyes when she caught sight of the Queen Mary. The liner, originally intended for 2,000 wealthy passengers, now housed 18,000 American soldiers and 160 nurses as well as the Red Cross women. Kick told her family that the men were sleeping in the hallways and on the decks, wherever they could be squeezed in: ‘It really is the most pathetic looking sight in the world to see the way they are living.’3 She shared a cabin with eight other girls (one bath between them). At night, because of the blackout, they would cover the portholes. She was glad to find she could buy chocolate bars and cookies. During drill, which took place on the sun deck, she walked among the soldiers: ‘it is amazing what the appearance of the fair sex gives them’.4
Kick had finally achieved what she had longed for: a return to her beloved London, and to Billy Hartington. How had she achieved the seemingly impossible? It seems that her parents had finally relented and let her become one of the ‘Doughnut Dollies’, as the press dubbed the women.
In early 1943, Kick left her newspaper job in Washington and began her Red Cross training. She was following in the footsteps of her Aunt Eunice in the First World War. Red Cross Clubs were being sent out to improve morale among American GIs. The girls would give out coffee and doughnuts and, more importantly, chat to the GIs about home. There were eight Red Cross Clubs in London, but many others around the British Isles. They worked from ‘Clubmobiles’, buses fitted with lounges, ‘coffee and donut-making equipment, gum, cigarettes, magazines, newspapers, postcards, a phonograph and records’.5
The ARC (American Red Cross) training usually lasted for six weeks, and the girls were all expected to be college-educated and to possess extremely high social skills, which was no problem for Kick. They learnt management skills, programme planning and recreational games. They also learnt to drive a Clubmobile, to change a tyre and service their vehicles. But the main thing, as one volunteer said, was that ‘you’re female and speak English’.6
Kick was trained in Richmond, Virginia, befriending a woman called Tatty Spaatz, an ex-girlfriend of John White. The girls compared notes and discovered to their amusement that he had sent them identical letters declaring his undying love.7
Kick adored her time in Richmond, having what she called ‘my real baptism as a Red Cross worker of World War II’.8 She loved the ‘beautiful & proud Southern town’ of Virginia and the ‘genuineness of Southern hospitality’. Wherever the Red Cross girls travelled on the trolley cars, they were given the best seats, men jumping to their feet. She noted in her diary that the people were ‘first proud as Virginians, secondly as Americans’. She worked h
ard in the day, and then by night she danced with a range of partners from ‘a plumber, a truck driver, bootlegger, heavy weight boxer, Cotton-Club dancer’. Everyone, she noted, ‘had a story and it doesn’t take much to get him started’.9
When she had finished her training at the end of May, she headed back to Washington, where she cleared her apartment. She accompanied a group to the FBI headquarters, where she met J. Edgar Hoover (‘big personality and handshake’), who was ‘worshipped like God’.10 Later, she met up with Lord and Lady Halifax and their son Richard Wood. She enjoyed discussing Anglicanism and Catholicism with Lord Halifax. Halifax, she noted, was for unification of the churches but saw papal infallibility as the sticking point. They talked about the confessional and transubstantiation. It was a taste of things to come.
Kick had a gift for dealing with older people as well as young. She adored Lord Halifax who, she thought, ‘bespeaks wisdom, spirituality’, and she loved his sense of humour. She disliked the Director of the American Red Cross in Britain, Harvey Gibson: ‘Rather Grumpy sort of person’. She dined with her father and Lord Beaverbrook, the Canadian newspaper tycoon and British politician, whom she found ‘quick’, with a ‘nimble mind’ and a desire always ‘to get right to [the] core of the matter’.11
Kick had dinner with Richard Wood, who talked at length about his war wound. After the bomb had crushed his legs, he lay in his slit trench and told himself that he was going to live. When he awoke in hospital he heard two orderlies discussing whether he was going to make it through the night. His legs were amputated on a makeshift table in a tent in the middle of the desert. He asked if he would ever walk again and was told about Douglas Bader who had had both legs amputated after a flying accident. With the use of artificial legs, Bader learnt to walk and dance, and continued his career as a fighter pilot. Kick said Richard’s worst fear was for people to pity him: ‘I think he’s the most courageous person I’ve ever known,’ she wrote in her diary.
Ready to embark for England, Kick was issued with her regulation army equipment. In her diary, she observed that reality was hitting home.
Rose recalled many years later that once Joe and Jack had been sent to the ‘theaters of war’, Kick felt ‘rather left out . . . she too wanted to be directly involved in the war and to make her own contribution that would be constructive’.12
Some of her friends had a more cynical view: that Kick’s only motivation was her determination to win back Billy. As one of the conditions of her acceptance into the Red Cross, one of Kick’s friends was required to sign a form verifying that Kick was not going overseas in order to be reunited with a boyfriend. Her friend Dinah Brand joked that having heard the news about Billy’s engagement, Kick was getting on the first boat back to England.13 Even Jack joked that his sister was likely to become a duchess soon.14
Rose admitted in her memoirs that she had little idea that Kick was in love with Billy. However, there was no guarantee that Kick would be assigned to London, where she so desperately wanted to be. Not unless her father could pull some strings.
Yet her father and Jack knew of her strong feelings for Billy. It seems likely that Joe did indeed pull some strings to ensure that Kick did not end up assigned to a Clubmobile in some remote city. One of his contacts at US Army headquarters in London ensured that she was posted there.15 She was delighted when she heard the news.
The crossing was rough and precarious. Her sleep was interrupted by the ship’s constant swerving to avoid German submarines. The cabin was cramped: ‘and when I say on top of one another I do mean on top of one another’.16 She thought the nurses were ‘tough babies’. She liked the Red Cross girls but was rendered impatient by their giggling and gossiping until 1.30 a.m. She was always fond of an early night. To stop herself from feeling hungry she nibbled on chocolate and crackers. Then, always mindful of her weight, she would take exercise by pacing the deck (just 40 feet long), ‘trying to eke a mile out of it’.17
She told Rose that she was attending mass and taking communion. She also spoke of her excitement at seeing England again, and was quite prepared for all the changes: ‘This arrival certainly is going to be different from our last one. The life on an Army troop transport has been an eye-opener. It seems to me unreal and far removed from anything I’ve ever known that I can’t believe I’m a part of it. Sometimes it almost feels like a dream.’ But she added cheerily, ‘Love to all and eat a lot of ice cream for me on Sunday.’18
Kick had not told many people that she was coming to England: ‘What a shock they’ll get when I get on the other end of the phone.’ When she arrived, she scribbled a quick note home: ‘Everything wonderful and it certainly doesn’t feel like four years . . . to say that those I’ve seen were surprised is putting it mildly.’ Her plan was to move into a flat with her old friend Jane Kenyon-Slaney: ‘Certainly glad I brought an evening dress. As much gaiety here as in New York. Had steak for dinner last night, which is probably more than you all can say.’19
Most of her friends thought her unchanged, other than her new hairstyle with curls in front. On her first day in London she had tea with Janey, cocktails at the Savoy and then dinner at the Gargoyle with male friends, where she ‘guzzled a steak’. Kick had been worried about the reception she would receive, and on her first night out two men abused her father for being anti-British. One was a journalist called Derek Tangye: ‘an effeminate type and I think, completely inconsequential’.20 Her father responded with a loving letter in which he advised her about the anti-Joe Kennedy feeling: ‘After all, the only crime I can be accused of is that I was pro-American instead of pro-English . . . You have your own life to live and you needn’t answer any of my problems, responsibilities or difficulties – so just smile and say “Fight with him; he can take care of himself.”’ He carried on reassuring her that ‘no one has been more sympathetic to the British cause than you, so you shouldn’t have to take any of the criticism, but I’m just saying this to you so that you’ll be prepared for it. I don’t mind; don’t you.’21
There had been much interest in the English press about her return to England. One magazine article called ‘Smart Set Society Hats Off’ featured her: ‘WE TAKE OUR HATS OFF TO Miss Kathleen Kennedy of the sparkling Irish eyes and unquenchable zest for life.’ The report went on to detail her ‘unhesitating response to her country’s need in time of war and her gallant sacrifice in halting a brilliant newspaper career to serve overseas with the American Red Cross’. ‘Her hair is a long, sweeping shoulder-length bob, and she has the radiant colouring of her Irish ancestors; a lovely colleen and a credit to her fighting lineage.’
Kick was relieved. In July, she wrote to her family to tell them about the warmth of her reception: ‘I simply can’t get over how nice everyone is. I must say that I expected old friends to be kind but they have exceeded all expectations.’ Lord Beaverbrook had asked her to stay for the weekend, saying ‘this admirer is the combined age of all your other admirers’. Kick was ecstatic: ‘Anytime anyone says anything about the British in front of me they’ll hear about it.’22
There was one man in particular who was overjoyed to hear that Kick was back. On the very night that she returned she received a telegram:
REACH LONDON 7.15 SATURDAY STAYING AT MAYFAIR. CAN YOU KEEP SUNDAY FREE. BILLY
35
Coffee and Doughnuts
I feel that my devotion to the British over a period of years has not been without foundation and I feel this is a second home more than ever.
Kick Kennedy to John F. Kennedy1
‘First day back in London and I still can’t believe I’m really here. It all seems like a dream from which I shall awaken quite soon.’2
She was assigned a position as programme assistant at an officers-only club in Hans Crescent in exclusive Knightsbridge, a stone’s throw from Harrods. It’s hard not to imagine Joe’s handprint on this. Her days were long, and she was expected to stay on well into the evening, checking in female guests and then dancing with the soldie
rs. She wrote to her old boss, Frank Waldrop: ‘As we get a day and a half off a week I am here recuperating from five and a half days of jitter-bugging, gin rummy, Ping-Pong, bridge and just being an American girl among 1500 doughboys a long way from home. (I’m not sure yet but I don’t think this is what I was born for).’3
The ‘doughboys’ ate American food, had their clothes pressed and their shoes polished, went dancing and theatre-going in the West End, and had a warm bed for the night. Kick wrote of the GIs that they were ‘very nice but most of them are so homesick and heartily dislike the British and everything about them’. She was constantly stopped on the street by the throngs of Americans who wanted to chat, but she was not terribly interested in the American boys: ‘I hop on my bike and away I go.’4
She wrote to Lem: ‘You wouldn’t recognize old Kick who used to walk around with her nose quite far in the air if she had to go in the subway to get to the Automat with you’. She added, ‘I’d give my two tiny hands, covered in warts for a meal in the Automat and I wouldn’t care if I had to sit with two dirty truck drivers. As a matter of fact they are probably the only people I know how to charm now.’5
Jack wrote to Kick from the South Pacific to berate her for sending ‘TERSE TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNIQUES’ instead of proper letters. His entire letter was jokingly typed in capital letters to make his point.
He had assumed command of PT 109 on Talugi in the Solomon Islands. He had written from his base to enquire whether Kick had left for Europe, telling his parents that he now had his own boat and went out on patrol every other night. He also told them that he had visited George Mead’s grave: ‘he is buried near the beach where he fell – it was extremely sad’.6 This brought home the frightening reality of war, but his letters remained zestful.