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Show FROM JUNGLE TO AIR FIELD IN RECORD TIME . Ojficial U. S. Navy Photograph. SOMEWHERE IN THE SOUTH PACIFIC Working with assembly-' line precision, ground men load bombs into a TBF at a secret coral island air field one of the jumping off places for the current South Pacific Allied offensive. Fourteen days before this bomber field (shown in photo above) was completed there was nothing on this spot , but cocoanut palms and jungle. Cord-wood fashion, bundles of steel landing mat are unloaded from ship to beach to air field and many sections have planes rolling on them by nightfall of the same day. This sudden transition is made possible by the use of steel mats, many of which are made by United States Gypsum company, which has converted for the duration from the production of metal lath for gypsum- plaster walls and ceilings of buildings to landing mat, expanded ex-panded metal and steel gratings used widely in ships, airplanes and other vital war equipment. |
