Harriette and her roommate were billeted in an apartment building in Naples and their first evening was a night to remember. "There was a bombing raid in the harbor that first night ­ we were on the top floor and didn't know what to do. We had no instructions so we just put our helmets on and sat there on the bed. As if those helmets would have saved us if we'd gotten a direct hit!"

Harriette soon learned that her brother, Herbert W. Vaden, Jr., was listed as missing in action. Herbert, attached to the 36th Infantry Division, had been part of the invasion force at Salerno. She didn't know if he was dead, alive, or captured as a prisoner of war.

After a brief stint in Naples, Harriette was transferred to Cerignola on the Adriatic coast of Italy. Here, she was attached to the15th Air Force in support of the 454th Bomb Group flying B-24 Liberator heavy bombers. Harriette's work allowed her to tap into her education at Longwood. She specialized in recreational activities and also managed a clubmobile bringing coffee, donuts, and a friendly smile to the aircrews returning from daylight raids. "We'd make sure the coffee was hot and we'd put fresh donuts in a bomb crate to carry them out to the landing strip." Knowing the men as they did, it was a tough job waiting for the planes to return, not knowing who had survived. "We lost a lot of boys coming in for a landing because some of the planes were so shot up. One of our B-24s came in and had a bomb hanging down from the bomb bay. The tower radioed them to head out to sea to get rid of the bomb but the pilot didn't get the message. The plane came in and landed and that bomb skidded underneath the plane and blew them to smithereens ­ the blast knocked me down ... This was their next to last mission and it just made us all sick. We lost a lot of friends."

How does a young PE teacher from STC handle such a situation? Harriette replied, "We were young ­ that's the main thing. Of course, when we lost a friend, we handled it like the young men did ­ you had to go on. Some planes were so loaded down with fuel and bombs, they'd hit the trees or electrical wires and blow up on takeoff and you'd hear them go. You never knew from one day to the next if you would ever see your friends again. It was tough, plenty tough."

The 454th Bomb Group participated in the low-level bombing raids of the Ploesti oil fields in Romania. These oil production facilities had been supplying the Wehrmacht with fuel and, though heavily defended, the Army Air Force considered this a primary target. The 454th Bomb Group and Harriette's American Red Cross unit would receive Presidential Citations for their bravery and sacrifice during WWII.

The war was not without its lighter moments. Sometimes just staying warm was the top priority as Harriette recalls. "You wouldn't believe the little stove we had to keep us warm. The boys in engineering made it for us and I can see it just as plain as day. It was a 50-gallon oil drum cut in half set on an empty metal bomb case. An enema tube was hooked up to it to feed it gasoline, and the boys had rigged up a little door which would swing back and forth to keep the pressure from building up. But every now and then that little door would get stuck and 'Boom' all the soot would blow out, covering us from head to toe. We had smudges of black around our noses and lips after a cold night. But, it kept us from freezing."