First inside story from ‘the rock’ –
Last days on Corregidor Island described by American woman
Diet mostly of starches; each day called reprieve from Japs
By Janet White
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First inside story from ‘the rock’ –
Raw recruits converted into expert cannoneers
50,000 artillerymen trained at Fort Bragg in year to take their places in combat forces
By Marshall McNeil
…
Tokyo’s peace is bitter pill for Filipinos
They will be called upon to drain dregs from cup of bitterness
By William Philip Simms, Scripps-Howard foreign editor
…
Even hogs are happy –
Great U.S.-Australian garbage mess finally blows over
Americans were giving it away, upsetting market before they found out they could sell it
By George Weller
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Brazil strives to develop vast reserve of rubber trees to help U.S. in war
Production this year to meet only fraction of America’s needs
By Allen Haden
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Japs prepare invasion force
Allied aviators continue enemy base raids
By Don Caswell, United Press staff writer
…
Laval rejects demands submitted by U.S.; note called 'offensive interference’
By Ralph Heinzen, United Press staff writer
…
Haiti to revive production of rubber for U.S. market
Abandoned trees retapped while millions of new plants are being set out
…
New film beauty takes direction too literally and slaps soldier
Anyway, opinion is that Sal’s some gal
By Paul Harrison
…
The Pittsburgh Press (May 18, 1942)
On the home front –
Living costs drop as price lid goes on
Retailers post ‘ceilings’ on virtually all commodities
…
U.S. sub launched
New London, Connecticut –
Eight months ahead of schedule, the submarine Gunnel was launched yesterday at the Electric Boat Company shipyard in Groton.
Stowe: Soviet drivers ‘keep them rolling’
Stowe travels Lend-Lease route from Persia to southern Russia and finds Reds ‘nurse’ trucks as they rush supplies to troops
By Leland Stowe
Stowe’s route toward Moscow.
Moscow, USSR –
From Tehran, Iran, we traveled the Lend-Lease road by auto through the lofty passes of the Elburz Mountains down to the Caspian Sea, then by cargo boat to Baku.
All the way we journeyed with American war materials which were on the last leg of a long voyage to the Soviet Union’s mighty army. So, we saw our Lend-Lease tide rolling on, on and safely home.
Across Iran’s northern plateau, it is fairly fast going over the main dirt-road highway. The big trucks rumble up the tortuous passes between snow-capped giants of granite. Then they serpentine down through magnificent gorges whose rivers, swollen by spring floods, are torrents of boiling chocolate. We took the longer route through the lower passes because avalanches still make the sky-top route too dangerous.
Far better than Chinese
It is remarkable, though, how these Red Army drivers keep their convoys moving hour after hour regardless of backbreaking terrain and neck-twisting series of hairpin curves.
In places, this highway is as tough as China’s Burma Road, but Russian chauffeurs never waste a minute. They are driving against time.
Wonderfully efficient drivers, these Russians are. What records they could have hung up on the Burma Road! Unlike Chinese chauffeurs, they treat their motors with great respect. They pause frequently to water their radiators. Their cars are well-greased. As we passed one long convoy after another, I noticed how a dozen lorries held a single unbroken pace. I also observed that every Russian was his own machinic.
Never see wrecked truck
These people really know what maintenance means – no monkey business, no wasting of time or energy… We motored all day along with scores and scores of Russian-driven Lend-Lease trucks but we never encountered a single wrecked lorry, even on the meanest hairpins. There was not one stalled truck temporarily out of commission. Regardless of tough mountain gorges, everything keeps rolling.
Yes, these Russians mean business all right and they are as sweet a lot of smooth drivers as you ever saw. Those Boeing Boston planes, in their huge crates, are going to get where they are supposed to get, there is no doubt about that.
We are descending toward the Caspian now in late afternoon, and scores of UKCC camions are climbing back empty. They belong to the United Kingdom Commercial Corporation and the UKCC is the transit agency for Britain’s aid to Russia. Along with Soviet trucks, they are coming and going incessantly from one end of Iran to the other.
Picks four-leaf clovers
We round another curve and come out suddenly upon the shoulder of a great bluff. A mile below us, the river valley opens broadly between spruce-covered hills and it looks for all the world like a serene majestic vista in Oregon or Washington. We can see one Russian caravan and then another, miles ahead of us and below, winding steadily downward, ever downward. The Caspian and its ports are now almost within sight.
I step out upon a patch of clover. A good place for four-leaf clovers – the thought pops into my head. So, I walk over to a second patch and pick three four-leaf clovers as fast as my fingers can take them. I say:
Good luck for Russia.
So, the trucks roll on and on and the Lend-Lease road comes down to the sea. There is not one lorry smashed anywhere along the way. The Russian drivers have seen to that.
But there is more than luck about these Red Army drivers. They are doing a job, and the job is being done right. Unusual luck rides with those who earn it. A fine workmanlike job, bothers. Proud to know you! And that is why you enter Soviet Russia feeling that things are going right and that things are going to be all right