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Show My Experience While Over Seas By Bonita LeBeau Fite, Jr. It was a bleak, bitter March 3, 1943 that I left the shores of the U S, destination unknown. Many times during the ensuing ensu-ing twenty-eight days as the March storms played ball with our ship and the Axis subs diminished dim-inished our convoy, we felt rather ra-ther confident that our destination destina-tion would be the bottom of the sea. We were a humble and weary troup when, after wandering all over the Atlantic and spending two exciting bomb-filled days in a Scotland harbor, we landed in Reykjavik, Iceland. After only a few short days on blessed land, another ship tossed me around the rockey shores of Iceland and landed me in the second largest town of Iceland, Akureyri. My first two weeks in this lovely northern town were spent recuperating in a hospital, then for five months I worked in the Red Cross club arranging programs pro-grams and entertainment for the numerous G I's stationed there. On September 8, 1943 I again landed in Reykjavik where I was assigned to do a combination job of Medical Social Soc-ial work and recreation in the army hospital there. ! Here I learned to appreciate the effect months of watching and waiting can have on our American boys. I watched the change in their moral as the Icelanders warmed to them end began socializing with them. I felt the keeness of their sacrifice as American youth so far from all that meant home to them and their determination that their sacrifice be not in vain. Iceland is often called a land of ice and fire. It is just that. While a fourth of the Island is glacier the whole country is dotted with hot springs that remind re-mind me of our Yellowstone Park. There are also a number of active volcanoes that have frequently devastated the land, Mt. Hepla which is the most famous is only a few miles from Reykajavik. Jt has been due to errupt for a number of years and Is under the constant watch of the army. The climate in Reykjavik Is moderate with a low of only slightly below freezing in winter win-ter and getting as high as 80 degrees de-grees in the summer. Except for the wind, which is unceasing and often reaches the tornado stage, Iceland would be an excellent vacation land. The fields are green and dotted with colorful farm houses. This augmented by j the twenty-four hours of daylight day-light that marks the summer seasqn makes a fishing trip, picnic pic-nic or other outdoor experience a very pleasant one, The Icelandic people are scandanavian, speak their own language, are by the large well educated and widely read. They are Intensely proud fo their humble heritage. It was indeed with a feeling of regret and an assurance that one of the richest experiences of my life was being left behind me, that I boarded the plane for home. In strict contrast to my long and hazardous voyage over,' the trip to Washington, D. C. with my husband, Major James B. Fite, Jr., required only twenty-three twenty-three hours with brief stops in Greenland and Newfoundland. After two months in the East with my husband who was on duty there for Iceland Base Command, Com-mand, he returned to Iceland and I arrived in Utah on December Decem-ber 12, 1944, to visit my parents, Mr. and Mrs. A. J. LeBeau. |