OCR Text |
Show pie in London to have breakfast over there and dinner in New York. The trip then will be made : in huge planes in great comfort J and in luxury. We shall be flying , to far distant points all over the world in the same way and, in less ; than three days' flying time, be ( able to reach almost any important import-ant city on the globe. This journey jour-ney of mine shows how the world has shrunk and how close we now are to Europe. For me it was a great transition to be one day in America and the next in England. Enthusiastic air traveler that I am, and accustomed accustom-ed as I am to aviation, I confess this experience was thrilling. There were 29 of us in the plane, in addition to the crew of 10, giving giv-ing you some idea of the size our airplanes already have reached. Four powerful motors propelled it. Because of the need of minor 'BRITAIN SEES ' IT THROUGH A REPORT By FRANK GANNETT COMPLIMENTS OF THE GANNETT NEWSPAPERS Frank Gannett, head of the newspaper group ivhich bears his name and the author of this report, recently visited wartime Britain at the invitation invita-tion of the British Government. Govern-ment. He inspected American and British army encampments, encamp-ments, visited airdromes and talked with crews of allied air forces and witnessed departure depar-ture of bombers on demolition missions over Germany. He was in many areas which had felt the full fury of the Nazi Blitz and saw reconstruction which already had taken place. He was received by Prime Minister Churchill and other leaders of the British government and talked with high American and Allied military heads. Much of what he saw and heard cannot be . revealed at this time. He came into possession of much significant material which does not violate security regulations reg-ulations material which he incorporated in a report he wrote after his return to the United States and was published pub-lished serially in Gannett newspapers. Those instalments instal-ments will be published in THE HERALD from time to time. repair when we' landed in Ireland, we did not reach the airport in England until late in the afternoon. after-noon. After going through cus-tome, cus-tome, we took a train to London. We were dumped on the station platform in the intense darkness of the blackout which has been in operation in England since the beginning of the war more than four years ago. A woman in slacks hustled our baggage into a car with the aid of torches (or flashlights) flash-lights) and we were on our way to the Savoy Hotel. The only lights we saw were the little crosses on the safety zones in the middle of the streets and the tiny lights at intersections. The headlights head-lights of our car were almost dimmed out. It was a mystery to me how the driver could find his way and I was amazed when I finally reached the hotel in this weird atmosphere. Except during - the summer have become accustomed to their thin, unattractive monotonous food. You miss your tomato juice, citrus fruits, your ice cream and the ordinary cream to which we are accustomed. Coffee in England Eng-land is notoriously bad. How I wished, I had been able to take along with me in the plane a few tins of our instant coffee, but even then, there woulud have been no cream for it, only thin milk. In the morning I had corn flakes with blue milk and saccharin, sac-charin, then scrambled eggs made out of a powder, not very good, and sausage which was 75 per cent soy bean meal mixed with a little chopped meat. You could hardly call it a sausage, and you didn't ask what kind of meat it was, for they say in London that all the old horses tiptoe when they go past a butcher shop! After a few meals of this sort, months, the British people have been going to work in the dark. Men in factories work under artificial arti-ficial light and go home in the dark. Millions of them have seen little sunshine since the war began. be-gan. But when I passed through the swinging door of the Savoy, what a change! It was an entirely different dif-ferent scene. Everything was bright and gay; the orchestra was playing and the lobby of the hotel was teeming with people, uniforms uni-forms predominating.-- predominating.-- In the large dining room, every seat was taken. You don't get a place here unless you have made reservations much in advance. The dance floor was crowded and for the moment, except for the uniforms, uni-forms, I could forget that there was a wa.r on. Thp nlano m, o-o-,r I was not very enthusiastic about the food, but decided to go along, make the best of it and not complain. com-plain. The British do not kick, so why should I, thought I. How the British people have endured this for four years, day after day, is hard to understand. ' One over there eats the food, not because he likes it, but because he must have sustenance. Apparently Apparent-ly it is adequate for the Minister of Food Lord Woolton said the health of the people is good. They appear to be sufficiently nourished but there is a tremendous increase in tuberculosis throughout the British Isles and other deficiencies deficien-cies like tooth decay are beginning begin-ning to show up, and I am of the opinion that this restricted diet in the long run will prove harmful harm-ful to the public health. CHAPTER I To visit London at this time is only ten minutes by air from the thrilling and exciting. London is German lines in France. It is the nerve center of all the European military operations. It is close up to the war. It was my privilege to spend four weeks over there. Now it seems as if I had been in another world, that the visit was something some-thing unreal, a dream. It was an unforgetable experience, every minute crowded with interesting sights, interviews and with matters mat-ters of great import. I flew to England in a clipper-ship clipper-ship which I boarded at an eastern east-ern airport. After 21 hours in the air and after one stop for fuel, I awoke one morning in Ireland and a couple of hours later was in England. That is only a little longer long-er time than it takes the 20th Century to go from New York to Chicago. Although I have flown more than 600,000 miles, this trip in the air, over the ocean, was something of an adventure which I thoroughly thorough-ly enjoyed. The voyage was smooth and I had a good sound sleep in a comfortable berth. The steward served us tasty food and the voyage was delightful in every ev-ery way. I know it seems to many people there is something unusual and a bit "scarey" in flying across the Atlantic, but to those of us experienced ex-perienced in aviation, it is nothing noth-ing to be feared. Every day of the year several bombers are flown across the Atlantic without a stop. Some have made the trip in six hours from a Canadian airport air-port and their regular schedule is under 10 hours. In London I met a friend who had flown from Montreal Mon-treal to England in 10 hours. This trip gives you a glimpse of transportation of the future. After Af-ter the war it will not be long before be-fore it will be a common experience experi-ence for people to have dinner in New York and breakfast the next morning in London, and for peo- .u.v.v. .ruu &aj- er in every way than it was when I was there five years before. People Peo-ple were laughing, eating and drinking and having a good time. I could not help but think how precious to these men in uniform was this night at the Savoy. Tomorrow To-morrow probably they would be back in the line. The flyers soon would be in combat with the Huns. Next I had my first experience with England's food problem. The dinner that we had at this swanky place was rather thin, to say the least. There is a great shortage of many foods. Butter and meat are very hard to get. Eggs are seldom sel-dom seen. There are no citrus fruits at all. Sugar is scarce. A meal prepared without butter is rather tasteless at best. tVe had a good thick soup, brown rolls without butter, a slice of tough chicken, brussels sprouts and some cooked turnips. The desserts are unsatisfying, and we had to be content with a sliced apple poorly baked, without cream or sugar. Our meal, of course, was much better than .the average person in England enjoys. The ration permits about 25 cents' worth of meat a week and this means very little, indeed, perhaps enough for one fair meal. The British people |