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Show thousands of activities. During its lifetime, however, U S O spent $250,000,000 collected from that same pool of average Americans who provided the million mil-lion men, women, boys and girls who took over the volunteer jobs in the lounges, clubs, field trucks and stations. At no time was its paid staff more than 5000, but it produced through U S O camp shows over 700 stage and screen luminaries, who volunteered to entertain service serv-ice men and women in the war theaters, in the camps and bases of territorial America and in the wards and auditoriums of every military hospital. Every club, from Havaii to the Atlantic seaboard had at least space where the forces in their leisure time could find a spot for reading, playing games, dancing or talking. When it started, in the prewar days when preparedness was the watchword. U S O was filling a slightly different need. It was a need anticipated simultaneously by Protestant, Catholic and Jewish welfare organizations. All realized that thousands of youn 1 men would be uprooted and deposited at camps and installations far from their homes. They also real, ized that small towns would be engulfed by these same thousands when thev had passes or leaves and .no place to go. I But U S O camp shows, already established as troupers on a "purple heart circuit" covering veterans hospitals, will go on. Its new name is Veterans Hospital Camp Shows and it has taken on the job of providing professional entertainment for the men in some 80 hospitals. END OF 1947 WILL SEE CLOSE OF USO The close of this year, midnight, December 31, will also mark the end of the USO, which has operated oper-ated throughout the country for the past seven years. From beardless buck privates, away from home for the first time, to gold-braided admirals, there was scarcely a soldier, sailor or marine in the armed forces who at some time didn't receive a friendly lift from the USO. A million civilians worked as enthusiastic volunteers in the mammoth job of providing recreation, recrea-tion, relaxation and off-duty services ser-vices to the huge body of fighting men and women. The United Service Organizations Organiza-tions started with a big idea and a small nucleus of men in the selective service days of 1940. Then it mushroomed so fast with the coming of war that there was literally neither time nor personnel person-nel to keep adequate files on its |