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 Joe7s Joint by the Continental Hotel and Al7s Place 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 d7ArzeW 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 reaifirma- 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. 3. Continental Hotel 2. Road to Sidi-bel-Abbes. 4. Market Place.

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I CLl'l There was a saying aboard the ship- once that Oran was our home ports That was when we had been in the Mediterranean so long that New York, our real home port, seemed as distant and dreamlike as a golden city of heaven. But Oran was here nowg it was the reality. No one aboard ship liked it. We complained of its crowds, its filth, its heat, and its smell. But when we had just hit invasion beaches and were coming back, when in the bright morn- ing sunlight we saw the shrine of Santa Cruz high on the hillside and the city sprawled around the bay like a fistful of white stones flung by a giant . . . then we felt oddly that we were coming home. This was something we knew. The heavy, pungent smell of the city came out to sea to meet us and we would look at one another grimacing and say, HYep, thatis Oranfi Actually, the ship seldom moored in Oran itself. Usually we went alongside the protective mole at Mers-el-Kebir, a harbor- village around the mountain from Oran. There We did our routine work, there we loaded our cargo and troops. At the beginning of the mole was a rocky beach where we swam. Eight kilometers along a breath-taking clilt road was Ain-El-Turck 1 Oran from Santa Cruz. 3. Mattress Covers? 2 Home Port. 4. Rue de Clemenceau. .ii A 'X . . sw 9 4. ix g. A 1 if 7 T sk . . -! ' s I 4 I B 5 l I 2 I ..4L

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