Free Time
Adak, Alaska May 1943

Doing a hard days work. Wm. R. Eubank, Capt. MC
A.P.O. 980 Seattle May '43

As I read my Father's "Letters from the Aleutians", I learned more about his "free time". In his letters he talks about his radio, reading materials, informal lectures, music, and board games.

May 17, 1943
.
Specially Printed for U.S. Forces Overseas
The editorial content of this edition is photographically
reduced from the regular edition.


The specially printed issue of Time from May 17, 1943 was found in with his letters. The physical size of the magazine is 9" X 6", there are no advertisements inside, the print is very small, and there are a total of 34 pages. On pages 13 and 14 he had marked off a story about the "Advance Toward Kiska" which he took part in. Page 13 and part of page 14 are presented below.




(T) Amchitka's Steel Mat Keeps P-40s From Bogging Down In Mud
(C) Jones of Amchitka - Incoming Pilots See (on clear days) This Bleak Terrain - Buckner of Alaska
(B)Lightening (foreground) Shuttles Steel To Kiska, DC-3s (behind) Shuttle Supplies From Mainland
Official U.S. Army Photos-International, Associated Press, Acme


Aleutian Index    Mess Hall

404th Staff    Dispensary

Living Quarters Adak    B-24s    U.S.O. Party

Recreation    Alert - Going Home    Map of Alaska

Ration Book 1   Ration Book 2   Ration Book 3

Ration Book 4    Ration Book Gasoline

Links to WWII In The Aleutians

Contact: William@EUBANK-WEB.com

(page 13)

BATTLE OF THE PACIFIC

Minor Conquest

     Last week the Navy announced an old and minor conquest: on Feb. 21, U.S. forces followed the vanquished Japs on to the Russell Islands, a grouplet lying 60 miles northwest of Guadalcanal's Henderson Field. Jap naval units had used Sunlight Channel (which splits the two main islands in the group) as deep-water anchorage; the Navy presumably finds the channel similarly useful now, and there are sites for advanced airports.

Advance toward Kiska

     Both sides used the winter to extend feverishly the positions they had set up in the late fall of 1942. It seems that on both sides this has been finished. . . . All in all, Americans in this area have accomplished construction and are in the midst of their preparations for a general attack against Japanese bases at Attu and Kiska.
     So prophesied radio Berlin last week. Two days later, a U.S. Navy communiqué announced that Army and Navy forces had occupied Amchitka, an island in the Rat group in the Aleutians only 60 miles from the Japs' main base on Kiska.
     Last Jan. 12, U.S. troops went ashore through icy water, stacked supplies in the wind-whipped snow, dug in for shelter of a kind, survived immediate but ineffective Jap bombings, and started work at once on an airfield. By Feb. 16, they had carried ashore tons of steel mats for plane runways, and U.S. P-38 fighter-bombers were sweeping up into gale-swirled fog to paste Kiska. One of the photographs released last week showed air transports in (page 14) the background (see cut); the new position is supplied partly by air.
     For news of other moves by Lieut. General Simon Bolivar Buckner, commander of the Army's Alaskan-Aleutian theater, or by Brigadier General Lloyd E. Jones, who led the advance to Amchitka, the U.S. had to wait awhile. It was plain that the Japs on Kiska and Attu were in for something more decisive than bombs.




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