Elizabeth Stanton (AP 69) - Naval Cruise Book

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with its gay-colored villas and broad white beaches . . . finer, more beautiful beaches than we were later to see on the French Riviera. Oran itself had much to offer. There were some beautiful shaded parks. For beer drinkers there was Joe ' s Joint bv the Continental Hotel and Al ' s I ' lace around the corner and up the street. There was the American Bar with its friendly barmaids, and the Maison du Colon with its good ice cream. There was the long shopping district along the Rue d Arzew where souvenir hunters often picked up good things. And permeating all was the rich, varied sound of Oran ' s streets: the cries of Arab peddlers and beggars and shoe-shine boys, the jumbled accents of French and Arabs and British and Americans, the hee-haw braying of donkeys, the pound and boom and rattle of war vehicles along the boulevards, and the monotone song of occasional planes overhead. Oran was no longer a French city; it was an Allied city. At every sunset there was a reaffirma- tion of this when the flags of three nations were drawn slowly down their staffs, and men and women of many nations stood at attention listening to the Marseillaise, to God Save the King, and to The Star Spangled Banner. 1. Mers-el-Kebir, the Mole. 2. Road to Sidi-bel-Abbes. 3. Continental Hotel 4. Market Place. 33

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M 9 lerd Algiers was used predominantly as a port for (he British just as Oran was used mostly for the Ameri- cans, but both nations, of course, used the cities interchangeably- Algiers with its fine docks was invaluable, both as a receiving center for the tremendous supplies needed to sustain our military organization in North Africa and as a great staging area for the future invasions of Sicily and Italy. And aside from its immediate strategic value, its metropolitan resources and adjacent swimming beaches afforded relaxation and diversion for Army and Navv forces who were marking time in the city and recharging their vitalities for the next strike. li Akerian-Kiencli Catheilral. Sicilian Invasion I.datl. y: