The Rochambeau Group of ambulance drivers was formed in New York, trained in North Africa, and transported to Normandy to serve under General Patton in August 1944. Their story is brought to light for the first time by Ellen Hampton in Women of Valor: the Rochambelles on the WWII Front, now available from Palgrave-Macmillan and in your local bookstore. Women of valor bears witness not only to their unflinching courage and extraordinary sense of duty, but also to the camaraderie that grew between the women and their fellow soldiers. Organized in New York by Florence Conrad, a wealthy American widow determined to create a female ambulance corps, the “Rochambelles”, as they became known, also were the first women’s unit to be part of an armored division. Some of them had been proper young ladies stranded abroad by the German invasion of France; others had scaled the Pyrénées by night to escape the Nazi occupation. All of them had a deep desire to help liberate their nation, and if they couldn’t fight, driving an ambulance would be the next best thing.

The group – named the Rochambeau Group after the revolutionary-era count who led French troops to assist the Americans – eventually numbered more than 50 women, working amongst the 15,000 men of the French 2nd Armored Division. Initially, they met with hostility and resentment from the men, who did not want women in their army. Ignoring the jeers and jibes, they learned to break down truck engines and detect mines, tie a tourniquet and march in parade drill. By the time they sailed for England in May 1944, the Rochambelles were an accepted part of the division. When U.S. Army officials tried to block them from the transport ship, division commander General Leclerc declared: "They're not women, they're ambulance drivers!"