Word: helena
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Renascence. In Helena, Mont., Postman W. Rush Burroughs retired from the service after 41 years, got a nice job as a door-to-door salesman...
...rest of the world, we have our Overseas Edition, which goes by boat and plane to English-reading people in some 70 free countries; there is one reader on St. Helena who sometimes gets a whole year's copies at once; and one each in the Canary, Falkland, Fanning and Society Islands. There are two civilian subscribers in Greenland, two in Bechuanaland, three in the Soviet Union...
Torpedoes got the Helena. Her main battery had been trained on one of the big Jap ships. She opened up with a blinding burst of flame, sank it. Her secondary battery smashed one Jap destroyer then another. Other U.S. ships were firing salvos, but the Helena chose to use "continuous fire." Her gunflames flared from stem to stern. In the brief moment left of her life she loosed perhaps a thousand rounds from main batteries alone and her thunder could be heard for miles...
That was the Helena. She had gone down in 20 minutes, but her bow had floated a little while longer. Then it, too, was gone. She sank gently, without exploding, the thick oil bubbling black as the Pacific night from her shattered hull. The men went over the side, into the oil. There was no fire...
Last week the Navy added a postscript: nearly 1,000 men of the Helena's complement "today stand fit and ready to fight again." Some of them, oil-smeared and haggard, were picked up near the ship's grave. Others got to nearby islands, lived with the resourcefulness of good fighting men, were finally retrieved. They went to other ships, other stations. But they were still Helena men, would always...