Norway High School - Caduceus Yearbook (Norway, ME)

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THE CADUCEUS 31 had a typhoon, my house was destroyed and UNICEF workers came to help us rebuild. They took care of us be- fore our homes were built, too. A very little boy from Columbia said, They came where I lived and stuck needles in me so I wouldn't get sick from diphtheria and whooping cough. A worker for the U. N. who had just walked in said, I think you may be in- terested in knowing that the UNICEF has provided vaccinations against tuber- culosis for four million children, that four million children have been protect- ed from malaria, and that three million have been fed. UNICEF is a very good organiza- tion, but so is UNESCO, said a woman from Bolivia. They have helped us, India, the Philippines and Thailand, all in the same way. They are training our teachers, and starting schools and libraries. They have helped us to train teach- ers, too, said a man from Egypt and a girl from Mexico at the same time. That is all well and good, said a man from India, but have they done anything for the farmers as the FAO does? They have been teaching us how to use the modern farm machinery. An Ethiopian man said, There has been an epidemic of cattle disease. Now it is practically over, for the FAO has been helping us to control it. In many parts of Asia they are showing farmers how to grow better rice and the fishermen how to catch larger amounts of fish, said a man from China. To end the discussion a teen-ager who has studied the U. N. says, There are many other agencies in the U. N. who help people in backward or helpless countries such as: International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the International Civil Aviation Organ- ization IICAOJ, the International Trade Organization fITOJ. And then, if I were there I think I would ask you, Is the United Nations a success or a failure? Ask these peo- ple and see what they say. Jean Truman, '57 DESTINATION: UNKNOWN It all started when Mr. X arrived at our naval base on an island in the South Pacitic. Flown in from Russia by one of the fast pursuit planes at the base, no one except Naval Intelligence knew he had arrived. I Hrst saw him in the briefing room at the base, to which we twelve members of the Underwater Demolition Team had been summoned. He was a small man of medium build, about twenty-six years of age, although his small mustache and slightly gray- ing hair made him appear much older. On the desk in front of him was a small black portfolio, and hanging on the wall behind him was a large map which showed a detailed coastal area. Gentlemen, he said, on this map you see a port, shipyard, and the sur- rounding coast. Where this is located and in what country, I am not at liberty to tell you, but, because of its strategic location, this port and the ships inside it must be either badly damaged or completely destroyed. I want tive men who are willing to take a chance on never coming back. I must tell you, though, that this objective is heavily mined and is under constant surveil- lance. This job is too dangerous for me to appoint anyone, so I'm asking for volunteers. For a moment no one moved, then Dave O'Brian, an Irish lad, stood up, I'll go, sir, he said.

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30 THE CADUCEUS Is the United Nations a success? The United Nations has been organized for only eight years, and that isn't a very long time. Oh, yes, I agree that eight years sounds like a long time, but it is a short time for an organization to settle problems of world peace, to develop friendly terms among all na- tions and to achieve co-operation in the solving of the world's problems. In the eight years that the U. N. has been organized it has done much good, such as sending troops to fight in Korea and WHO IWorld Health Organiza- tionl, which has helped to raise health standards in other parts of the world by sending food, doctors .and nurses to feed people and vaccinate them against the diseases that are prevalent in some of these foreign lands. There is UNESCO. Its duties are reconstruc- tion, education, communication, and cultural changes. Because UNESCO covers a large field of purposes, you can see that this organization must be a strong one. It has done much to maintain world peace. The first line in UNESCO's constitution is Since wars began in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed. This means that if there is world organiza- tion, we can make this a world of peace instead of a world of war. To solve all its problems, the U. N. is broken into six different groups. These are: A General Assembly, a Security Council, a Secretariat, an Economic and Social Council, a Trusteeship Council, an Intemational Court of Justice. Each group has its work to do to try to keep this a free world, free from war and free from dictatorship. Besides these six main groups there are other specialized Agencies. Some of these are the United Nations Educa- tional, Scientific and Cultural Organiza- tion, International Labor Organization, World Health Organization. -Jeannette Blanchard, '57 Suppose you were at a gathering in your community of people from many different nations of the world. Pretend that they all spoke the same language so that you could understand, that they were people of all ages. This is proba- bly what you would hear: Have you ever heard of WHO, an agency in the United Nations organiza- tion? asks an elderly man from a Cen- tral American country. Do you real- ize what they have done to help my people? Why, in Guatemala and Cos- ta Rica they are fighting a war against insects that cause disease. In Costa Rica alone they have cut malaria cases in half by spraying the houses with DDT and by draining the swamps where the dangerous mosquitoes breed. Why, of course we have heard of it. In my country they are now fighting a battle against yaws-a tropical di- sease, replies ,a man from Thailand. A man from Haiti breaks in, What a coincidence, they are doing the same thing in my country. 'Tm a nurse from Thailand, says one young lady. If it weren't for WHO I probably would be in the same boat as I was before. Besides training nurses, they have tried to help improve the hospitals and check disease. It was UNICEF that helped mother and me, spoke a little boy from India. Yes, said his mother, we were very near starvation when that wonder- ful organization came to help us, and to feed us. It helped me, too, said a teen-age girl from the Philippines. When we

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32' A THE CADUCEUS After that Johnny Adams, a boy, from Kentucky with red hair and a temw per to match, volunteered. Then I stood up. Count me in,f' I said. Me too, said Joe Thomas, a like- able fellow from Chicago. Bob Ryan, from Illinois, then volunteered. As this made up the five wanted, Mr. X then led the way into a small room, where he gave us our instructions. Three nights later, the five of us ap- proached ,Dock 7 inthe naval yards. Near the end of the pier, waiting for us, was the submarine, Sea Horse . We walked aboard, shook hands with ,the skipper, and were told our gear and bunks were in the bow, near the torpedo room. Since we were all tired and ner- vous, we welcomed the chance to get some rest.,, For my part, I didn't get to sleep until the wee hours of the morning, and I don't think any of the other fellows did, either. That's how keyed up we were! We were going to sabotage some ships we had never seen in a harbor of which we had never heard. We didnot even know where or in what country the ,harbor was located. This, plus a few other little incidentals, didn't exact- ly f'lull us off to slumberland . For four more days we stayed in our little steel-walled prison, the captain surfacing only at night, to avoid being seen. Then, the fourth night, we sur- faced later than usual. We were about one-half mile off shore, and to our right, far. in the distance, a search light cut the sea fog like a knife. . Visibility was very- poor. A, small rubber life raft was hauled on deck and inflated, while we squirmed into our tight-fitting rub- ber suits, and helped each other attach thetoxygen tanksfon our backs. We slipped into the life raft, picked up our paddles, and moved slowly and quietly away from the sub, toward the distant fog-shadowed shore. When we reached a point which we judged to be about opposite the search- light tower, we adjusted our face masks, opened the valve in the side of the raft, and headed for shore. There was a light surf running and as we left the spot, the raft sank slowly behind us. In single file we submerged and swam slowly through W the semi-darkness. Small schools of fish fled at our ap- proach, and occasionally a shark was glimpsed through the blue haze. Be- fore us a great steel torpedo net ma- terialized from the darkness. With the help of a pair of wire cutters, we soon had a small hole in the net. One by one we slipped through. We were in- side the harbor! Here we separated, Johnny Adams and Bob Ryan going in search of mines, while the rest of us headed for the ships, which lay at anchor inside the harbor. Splitting up, we went swiftly and silently to work. Joe Thomas and I were to sabotage the ships' rudders and to attach time-bombs to the ships below the water line, while Dave went into the shallow water under the main pier to set an explosive charge that would demolish the dock and surround- ing area. Joe and I finished our work quickly, and surfaced behind one of the larger ships. Suddenly a searchlight cut the water close to the pier! Shouts came from all directions! Then we heard the broken chattering of a machine gun. We did not have to be told what had happened. One of the guards had eith- er heard or seen Dave at work under the pier, and had spread the alarm. We knew that to wait longer would be to court danger, as the whole base was