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Occupied Territory
This is the story of a traveller to Finland who never reached her destination. Instead she was destined to travel from German-occupied Norway to German-occupied France via Sweden, Russia, the Balkans, Italy and Switzerland. (Arriving in London where she wrote this book, the author intended it as a warning to America and other nations about the danger threatening them.
292 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 1941
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May 26, 2026
First published in July 1941, and reprinted in December of that year, this book relates a near-incredible journey through a dozen or so countries in Europe, between April and December 1940. The second hand edition I picked up has a manuscript message in pencil on the inside cover, “With best wishes for Christmas, [signature] 25/12/41.” What became of the person who wrote that, I wonder, and the recipient?
Polly Peabody was an American who in 1939 volunteered to join a US Red Cross detachment travelling to Finland, to work with Finnish soldiers wounded in the 1939-40 Winter War. Her initial application was refused, allegedly on grounds of her youthfulness (22 at the time) and the unit departed without her, but she managed to gain acceptance by a second group. They had got as far as Sweden when they heard news of the German invasions of Denmark and Norway, and doubled back to Namsos to work with Allied troops. After the German victory they retreated back into Sweden, from where the unit decided to return to the States.
Peabody however, made a remarkable solo journey to France via a very roundabout route, first to Latvia, then a flight to Moscow followed by a journey to Romania by train, and thence to Yugoslavia, Italy, Switzerland and France, where she arrived soon after the Armistice there. As she said herself, she had a tendency to arrive in a country just in time for its funeral. She spent time in the Vichy zone before 3 months in Paris, where she drove an ambulance delivering Red Cross parcels to French and British POWs. She decided to leave because of Nazi restrictions on Red Cross activities, traveling through Spain and Portugal, from where she caught a flight to Britain, arriving on Christmas Eve 1940.
Some of the countries are only mentioned briefly, but the book is strong on the atmosphere of Europe at the time. Her journey through the Soviet Union vividly describes the desperate economic conditions in that country. The same applied in Spain, which had just emerged from years of civil war. Portugal by contrast, was an oasis of normality where it was possible to buy things like Camel cigarettes and real coffee. “One never appreciates the good things of this world until one can’t get them.” She is rather more complimentary about Salazar, the Portuguese dictator, than we would be today.
The bulk of the book though, is taken up with France. Peabody describes the atmosphere in the Vichy zone as highly Anglophobic. In contrast, people in the occupied zone were strongly pro-British. Faced with the misery inflicted by an occupying army, they pinned their hopes on the British and the Free French, and saw the Vichy regime as traitors. These descriptions answered a question I once asked in another review, but I won’t go into that here.
I will say that the book is very anti-German. This of course reflects the emotions of the period. Peabody was pro-British and pro-French by inclination, and had experienced the shock of seeing the Allies suffer a series of catastrophic defeats. She is very angry about the situation and very critical of US isolationism. She believes her fellow-Americans are complacent and unaware of the dangers posed by Nazi Germany. She acknowledges that she is emotional about the situation and, with a lighter touch adds, “I would hardly be a true American if I had not in me a streak of the preacher.”
I could find very little about the author, other than that she married 3 times and only died in 2009. She was the daughter of Caresse Crosby, a New York socialite considered a rather scandalous figure in her own day. The daughter seems to have inherited her mother’s independent streak.
The book is written well enough, but it gets 5 stars from me mainly because of the unique snapshot it provides, and because of the extraordinary journey it describes.
Polly Peabody was an American who in 1939 volunteered to join a US Red Cross detachment travelling to Finland, to work with Finnish soldiers wounded in the 1939-40 Winter War. Her initial application was refused, allegedly on grounds of her youthfulness (22 at the time) and the unit departed without her, but she managed to gain acceptance by a second group. They had got as far as Sweden when they heard news of the German invasions of Denmark and Norway, and doubled back to Namsos to work with Allied troops. After the German victory they retreated back into Sweden, from where the unit decided to return to the States.
Peabody however, made a remarkable solo journey to France via a very roundabout route, first to Latvia, then a flight to Moscow followed by a journey to Romania by train, and thence to Yugoslavia, Italy, Switzerland and France, where she arrived soon after the Armistice there. As she said herself, she had a tendency to arrive in a country just in time for its funeral. She spent time in the Vichy zone before 3 months in Paris, where she drove an ambulance delivering Red Cross parcels to French and British POWs. She decided to leave because of Nazi restrictions on Red Cross activities, traveling through Spain and Portugal, from where she caught a flight to Britain, arriving on Christmas Eve 1940.
Some of the countries are only mentioned briefly, but the book is strong on the atmosphere of Europe at the time. Her journey through the Soviet Union vividly describes the desperate economic conditions in that country. The same applied in Spain, which had just emerged from years of civil war. Portugal by contrast, was an oasis of normality where it was possible to buy things like Camel cigarettes and real coffee. “One never appreciates the good things of this world until one can’t get them.” She is rather more complimentary about Salazar, the Portuguese dictator, than we would be today.
The bulk of the book though, is taken up with France. Peabody describes the atmosphere in the Vichy zone as highly Anglophobic. In contrast, people in the occupied zone were strongly pro-British. Faced with the misery inflicted by an occupying army, they pinned their hopes on the British and the Free French, and saw the Vichy regime as traitors. These descriptions answered a question I once asked in another review, but I won’t go into that here.
I will say that the book is very anti-German. This of course reflects the emotions of the period. Peabody was pro-British and pro-French by inclination, and had experienced the shock of seeing the Allies suffer a series of catastrophic defeats. She is very angry about the situation and very critical of US isolationism. She believes her fellow-Americans are complacent and unaware of the dangers posed by Nazi Germany. She acknowledges that she is emotional about the situation and, with a lighter touch adds, “I would hardly be a true American if I had not in me a streak of the preacher.”
I could find very little about the author, other than that she married 3 times and only died in 2009. She was the daughter of Caresse Crosby, a New York socialite considered a rather scandalous figure in her own day. The daughter seems to have inherited her mother’s independent streak.
The book is written well enough, but it gets 5 stars from me mainly because of the unique snapshot it provides, and because of the extraordinary journey it describes.
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