1944 magazine articles about NEW HEBRIDES, US Navy in the Pacific, Color photos

Description: Selling are 2 magazine article from 1944: New Hebrides, US Navy in the Pacific Title: Palms and Planes In the New Hebrides Author: Major Robert D. Heinl, Jr., USMC Quoting the first page “My acquaintance with the New Hebrides began without warning in March, 1942, when the ships' loudspeakers announced to our force of Marines that our destination was the island of Efate. All hands made for the nearest chart to consider the strategic aspects of our expedition. During the spring of 1942, Japanese penetration of the Southwest Pacific was stabbing at American supply lines to Australia. Sweeping southward, enemy forces were attempting to conquer New Guinea. At the same time they were menacing the feeble defenses in Tulagi, still in friendly hands. Only a step to the south lay the New Hebrides. Thus the charts revealed our destination to be squarely athwart the enemy's line of advance. In fact, it was the last defensive position between the Japanese and our maritime life line through New Caledonia. Of the islands toward which we sailed, we, like most of the world, knew virtually nothing. Our charts, while the best available, were based on long-past surveys, and the little they conveyed served only to raise our doubts. Thus our only advance descriptions were of forbidding terrain, dense jungle, and ferocious islanders. An illustrated magazine on shipboard contained a photograph by a well-known explorer of what was described as a bona-fide cannibal feast in these very islands. The full military import of our mission was not yet evident, nor would it be until we learned of the impending Solomon Islands offensive. Thinking of ourselves as a stopgap defense force thrown in to arrest the enemy, we had no realization that by our occupation of the New Hebrides we were screening the deployment of much larger forces which would soon be mustered for America's first offensive, a movement not only against the Solomons to the north but against the conquered Philippines and eventually Japan itself. As our convoy coasted along the shoreline of Efate after a dawn landfall, we saw land with towering, abrupt mountains, immense upthrust ledges of coral, and dense tropical growth which seemed to dispute the shoreline with long Pacific rollers booming against its reefs. Overhead, instead of the blue sky of Technicolor, hung heavy clouds, portent of many a downpour to come. To a few old hands the shoreline suggested less hospitable parts of the coast of Panama. Not a building or work of man was in sight-only dense, dripping jungle. Within an hour, however, as we rounded a conspicuous promontory topped by a half-size sugar-loaf hill, we came upon a harbor entrance guarded by several tiny islands and crowned by a completely unanticipated village on heights to shoreward. It was our first sight of Vila, which was to be our base for many weary months to come. When American troops first landed, Vila was a tiny, white-walled, red-roofed town constructed around the twin hubs of the British and Fighting French Residencies-nuclei of the curious dual governmental system, called a "condominium," under which England and France exercise joint sovereignty throughout the New Hebrides. Remote as it was from ordinary trade routes, Vila nevertheless boasted a telephone exchange, electric lights, macadamized streets (a defense against bottomless rainy-season mud), and a few principal shops. Padlocked were the remnants of a Japanese commercial system whose enterprises, shortly before the war, were out of all proportion to the economic rewards in Vila. Built out over the water stood a tiny club which, with its Chinese attendants, tables covered with green baize, and shuttered verandas, might have been created by Kipling or Maugham. Except for one long main street parallel to the water front, the whole town clung to steep hillsides which rose from the shore to a commanding chain of ridges a half mile back. To the eyes of our transport-weary Marines the sudden revelation of this tranquil harbor and neat little town was accented by the appearance of the sun and a sky which partly redeemed hopes engendered by Hollywood. As if we were world-cruise tourists, our ship was soon surrounded by dugout outrigger canoes. They were handled with alarming carelessness by extremely black islanders whose hair, standing inches upright from their heads, was colored in disconcerting shades of red and yellow. Efate is the chief, but by no means the largest, of a group of 14 principal islands…” 7” x 10”; 19 pages, 17 B&W photos plus map. Title: Navy Wings Over the Pacific Photos by: US NAVY No text, just photo captions. 7” x 10”; 8 pages, 12 color photos of people, planes and places in the Pacific theatre. These are pages from an actual 1944 magazine. No reprints or copies. 44H5 Please note the flat-rate shipping for my magazine articles. Please see my other auctions and store items for more old articles, advertising pages and non-fiction books. Click Here To Visit My eBay Store: busybeas books and ads Thousands of advertisement pages and old articles Anything I find that looks interesting! Please see my other auctions for more goodies, books and magazines. I’ll combine wins to save on postage. Thanks For Looking! Luke 12: 15 Note to CANADIAN purchasers: Since 2007 I've only been charging 5% GST on purchases. Thanks to a recent CRA audit I must change to the full GST/HST charge. Different provinces have different rates, though most are just 5%. My GST/HST number is 84416 2784 RT0001

Price: 11 CAD

Location: Hubbards, Nova Scotia

End Time: 2024-02-09T12:52:17.000Z

Shipping Cost: 1.86 CAD