Girls High School of Brooklyn - Blue and Gold Yearbook (Brooklyn, NY)

Page 9 text:

Hands Across the Sea KATHLEEN ZIER, 8 IN these days of havoc and destruction, the waters that girdle the world are being used as battlegrounds no less bloody than those red-hued fields of Europe. The seas, which should link state with nation, country with continent, and continents with the world, have become chains in whose lengths ships of all nations are bound and made helpless. Not for this did Admiral Perry fight so valiantly on Lake Erie one hun- dred and thirty years ago, and not for this do we give battle on the Coral Sea today. Captain Iohn Paul Iones must have visualized a certain mari- time freedom when he defeated the foe against seemingly insuperable odds many pages back in our history, and just so do we visualize that same freedom today as We give of our life and our blood in the seas off the Solomon Islands. Surely Lord Nelson knew that he was fighting for a cause that must be won if there were to be a free people upon the earth, and so too do we know that we must fight, and must win, for the con- quered nations of the world. The tranquillity of the ocean has once again been disturbed. Battle- ships now push their martial prows through waters where stubby merchant- men used to sailg where gulls once wheeled and dived for fish beneath the surface, planes now drone, seeking a far more sinister prey. But water is a thing that does not long retain the signs of struggle. Two ships, locked in combat, sink to the bottom when their powers are spent, and water quickly surges over the traces of the battle. Sunken ships and drowned hopes are covered with a glossy blanket of green. The wake of a man-of-war disappears as quickly as it is made. Wreckage is swallowed or cast out upon the shore. 'k 1' i' For out of the seas may come peace as well as war. ls it not prophetic that two great spokesmen of democracy met on the high seas to draft the Atlantic Charter, a guarantee of all freedom to all people? Ships shall once again sail forth on the seas in friendly commerce with the world, planes shall once again cast their shadows on the ocean's face without leaving after them charges of destruction, and we, together with all the harassed people on earth today, shall once again gaze across the Wide expanse of ocean with renewed hope, renewed thanks that peace, like oil upon the waters, has stilled a tempest whose wind and waves, wild and sweeping, have pounded too many ships of state to destruction. 5

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For thee: the shimmering oi emercdds . . For thee: the coolness of the foam . . . For thee: the vocillorting ebb ond flow of the tides

Page 10 text:

....,..,.,.-f. - -T ' ' T-. --.:..--' ' f :T 'flif ' I--ii ,Li-+1-:Q .4-5. NK- J W 6 1 5 :ff-egg! 'Tx 'T s 1, p u p ,ay T' 2 ..fiit,3r w4' A 4-,:-ff? ww 5 ' iss - 1 alfifgiw' - V '-Fifi 5 'a.1r4q,,f 'ss' l.Nna i '- I., 1 ffl 5,9 ' XX.: Q -1:1 '--em 2, 2- 4:-. ,gs INTO this greatest ot all wars, the outcome of which must decide the tate of our democratic way of life as we know it and would have it remain- into this war, the United States and her allies are daily pouring the best ol their blood, strength, and brains. And much of this strength you will find where there is great need that it should be-on the ships that stand be- tween us and the foe, that convoy the troops and weapons and supplies ol battle. The following excerpts are taken directly from the ship's log of the U.S.S. Alabama sailing from New York on her course through the already dangerous Waters of 1941: IUNE 20, 1941 Stopped ship at 1:56 A.M. Picked up two lifeboats with thirty-two men in them. They were from the torpedoed British ship Kingston Hill , torpedoed without warning at 9:20 A.lVl. IULY 5, 1941 Arrived Capetown, South Africa, taking on bunkers and water. Mile- covered from New York to Capetown, S. A.-6915 miles.-No shore age leave. At anchor waiting for a berth. IULY 9, 1941 At sea. British airplane encircling ship. A. M. Signalling orders. lULY 18, 1941 5465 miles Arrived at Mombassa at 8 o'clock this morning. Sailing for Aden and Suez at one o'clock this afternoon. No shore liberty. lust pulled into port to receive orders. We are under British Military Control. IULY 29, 1941 1325 miles Arrived at Suez, Egypt, at 9:42 A.M.-Very hot here. 6 Eli - F-4-