Defiance at Cairo is the story of a Wisconsin railroad worker, turned U.S.Army combat engineer, Martin Jens Damgaard and a Tennessee stenographer, Joe Evelyn Porch. They found each other at the beginning of the Second World War, fell in love, courted by letters, found each other again after war’s end and made a life together. Their tale begins in 1940 and brings together the two rivers of large and fascinating families-symbolically at Cairo, Illinois where the Ohio River joins the Mississippi River. Long ago an army camp, Fort Defiance , peered into the two rivers and was commanded once upon a time by Ulysses S. Grant. Martin’s and Joe’s lives were also marked by noble efforts to defy chosen targets of oppression, sometimes even each other. Martin was the final child of eight from immigrant Danish parents. Joe was the sixth of nine children in a proud and old Tennessee family. They made their lives together in the nation’s capital, Washington D.C. and loved that city through nine Presidents. They raised one son, the author of this book.
This story is built around 170 extant wartime letters from him to her, through the army censors and across the sea. Seventy of those letters are included in this book. They mark the times through the days of build-up for the Normandy invasion through VE Day and the immediate days after. Martin’s letters track the Allied advance through the eyes and experiences of a combat engineer in an elite unit, from England to Normandy, through France and Belgium, into Germany and all the way to Berlin. This is a saga of war and romance. It is the classic G.I. love-story and then of a life crafted together, with all its stresses, challenges and joys. It is an American tale. It is not however, a couple cocooned in the individualism of our current culture. Martin and Joe saw themselves as part of a larger narrative grounded in community and duty. Many family members, friends and colleagues factor into Martin and Joe’s years, adding depth, connection and love. There is love in this book and there are surprises along the way. There is stress and disappointment and how those were dealt with. And there is honor, deserving a careful remembrance. The subjects of this story died in the 1990s having seen most of the twentieth century. It is the hope of this author that they will not be forgotten.
Many people, figures from World War II history, films of the time, events that are dramatic and campaign details of the 602nd Camouflage Engineer Battalion are reference. But the story is the two people, very different, brought together by the Second World War. As an Epilogue the author weaves their impact on him into the story. 70 Endnotes are included plus some 110 pictures, most of which are original from the author’s archives.
