Elizabeth Stanton (AP 69) - Naval Cruise Book

Page 75 text:

F l i E F l 3, ei sap ki 4: ES 1 . I 1 K. ry, l l U acihc .fdfoffi ana! .gfifancdi A contrast between lush, tropical fertility and barren tropical wastes is the dominating impression' of the Pacific Atolls of our memory. Perhaps atolls is a not too correct allusion to some of our island stops, but it is vividly indicative of others. The story of our trip through these island stepping stones to victory and peace is one of kaleidoscopic change. The colonial France of New Caledonia, with its Noumea, so pungently reminiscent of Algeria and Oran. The same low, shuttered covered houses and stores, the same distinctive odors, the same striking poverty. Only the sheeted bearded Arabs and the half veiled Arab women were needed to complete the picture and to make many of us feel that the days of the Mediterranean lived again. Espiritu Santo with its green, ripe oranges, its huge perfect lemons and its acrid tasting limes burdening the trees, uncultivated and awaiting a mere shake of a branch to come tum- bling down in teeming profusion. Guadalcanal, humid, steaming, vaporous, a tangled mass of jungle growth in whose trees and vines the raucous voiced, gorgeously plumed birds of the tropics flash. vividly against the dense, green background. Guadalcanal, across whose turgid, muddied streams and through whose grasping undergrowth the first steps back from Pearl Harbor were taken. A Across the Coral Sea Kwajalein and Eniwetok in the Marshalls are living examples that not intrinsic value, but military worth dictates the campaigns of the Pacific. For these atolls are as two oversize sandbars, struggling desperately to keep their drowning heads above the inexorable surge of the ocean. Barren, fruitless, monotonous, truly the islands that God forgot. Ulithi, in the Carolines, a spear in the heart of what was once Japanis prized military base and eliminating the power of the once famed strongholds of Truk and Yap. Into the Marianas and closer to the Rising Sun, where from the coral packed runways of Guam and Tinian and Saipan the relentless, shining power of the fabulous B-29s roars into the glistening sunlight or the silvering moonlight to send the tingle of fear into the hearts of those who were once so arrogantly confident. The Marianas, where the pitifully battered villages and homes bear testimony to the power and accuracy of the Navy's guns, where nature's typhoons menacingly gather and where the typhoon of sea and air and land power is mounting for the fury of the final attack. Finally the East China Sea, where the weight of out anchor split the waters off Okinawa, the island base which is so much like the first wedging foot to open the door of the enemy's homeland. Once peacefully calm in the soft sunlight and sweet, cooling breezes, it's now a land of surging mud under the heavy foot of war as the guns of the Navy, the bombs of the Air Force and the field artillery of the Army seek to break the last desperate, fanatical grip of the unfathomable laps. Memory will ever recall these islands to our thoughts. Perhaps not as attractive lands which we would like to revisit, but as monuments of history to the tireless courage and per- sistent effort which has led from the fantastic reality of Pearl Harbor to the heart of the J apa- nese Empire. i 73

Page 74 text:

fs I

Page 76 text:

y. I I . lM:,,,,, . ,....,.............,,...........,.,.,..... MW, .,v.-.,,.,,... ,M,,:,.,h '.-, ., - --- ,M ........... ,......, ..,. - ,. ., ,... V' .,,..,,... n,.,, , ,. ..., N ..... .. ., ., A,. . - ,. . -V . V- -- - x.i.?, s 1 v w I 5 A l i 5 i 5 . i i i w 'i V i I 1 i i' 5 i E H K 5 , ,,,,....,,,,, .....,,....,, ,,,,,,, ,,,.,, . j 1. Beach at Espiritu Santo, New Hebrides. 3. A Tropical Shoreline. 4. Javanese Child on Espiritu Santo 2. Pistol Rangti at Espirilll. 5, A Native 0f the Island, 3 1 ' Si? 2 rf f ik? I wi,