 The Johnson-Wax program, Words at War with Clifton Faderman. The makers of Johnson's Wax for home and industry in cooperation with the Council on Books in War Time proudly presents one of the most widely discussed programs in America, Words at War, dramatizations of the most representative books to come out of this great world conflict. And pinch-hitting for Carl Van Doren tonight is that good judge of fine books, man of letters, and nationally known radio personality, Mr. Clifton Faderman. A friend of mine said the other day that a good war story ought to have some shots and shells in it. Well, here goes. And there you have two pretty good rifle shots. I hope my friend is satisfied. Well, actually, the point I want to make is that in our war story tonight, there are no rousing tank battles, no artillery salvos, no diving planes, no charging German battalions. Tonight, we give you a personal story. The story about some fine, simple men, and their fight against an enemy more cruel by far than any German hordes. But more about the story in a minute. First, Jack Costello. Folks, tonight I'd like to go with you out to your garage. When you're through listening to the radio, let's slip out quietly and take a look at your car. What I'm especially interested in is how it looks, how you've kept up the finish. I don't mean to be critical if it's on the dull and gloomy side, but I think I can be helpful. You should know, for example, that dirt and road grime should be removed occasionally before they have a chance to do permanent injury to the finish. And I'm glad to tell you that with Johnson's Car New, you can keep your car looking its best, polished and shining with a very minimum of work. Car New saves work because it does two things at once, both cleans and polishes with one application. And because it's a liquid and so easy to apply. I'm sure I don't need to tell you there's more satisfaction in driving a clean, new-looking car. So why not try Car New this week? It's spelled C-A-R-N-U. Johnson's Car New. Mr. Faderman? Thank you. Tonight, Words at War brings you a dramatization of War Below Zero, a book written by three officers of the Army Air Forces. Colonel Berndt Balken, the veteran flyer and explorer, Major Cory Ford, noted writer and playwright, and Major Oliver Lafarge, the distinguished novelist. What they tell in War Below Zero is the story of what a few Americans did on a secret mission to Greenland, of how they fought loneliness and cold, more terrible enemies indeed than... But let's listen to one of the men tell you his own story of what it's like to fight in a War Below Zero. Listen to him tell what happened to him in Greenland. What happened in Greenland, Mr. Faderman? Nothing happened exactly. Nothing much, that is. But Greenland, see, well, fighting there, it's a lonely war. Right away, it's lonely. You feel it even aboard the ship as you pull in. I remember the first look I got at it. I was out on the deck of the transport. Some of us were singing. Some guys was writing letters, and some, like me, was just sitting. We'd just been told we was going to Greenland and none of us was happy about it, especially Joe. Joe was my buddy. He was from Texas. Listen to this, Johnny Boy. Greenland is almost half the width of the United States. If Australia is classed as a continent, Greenland is the largest island in the world. It is in the shape of a shallow bowl, I'm reading, with a rim of high mountains extending around the entire coast. Cupped inside these mountains is a vast sheet of ice covering the whole island. Listen, Johnny, I never even seen any ice outside of a mint julep. Well, ain't there no grass on it? No where? Listen to what the book says. The ice cap is more than two miles thick. Superimposed. What's that? Put on top. Put on top of the United States, it would extend from New York as far west as Kansas City. There are no fertile slopes, grassy meadows, rounded... Hey, you can stop reading now, Joe, and look at it. Huh? Sure. There she is. Greenland. Where's all the polar bears? That's what I want to know. Polar bears! Johnny, just look at them mountains. Look at them, like jagged old teeth chewing up the sky. Man, oh man, I'm going home. Cheer up, Joe. It ain't so bad. Yeah, maybe not. But I'd just like to get my hands on him, that's all. I'd just like to get my hands on him. Cool. The guy what named it Greenland. Joe was right. Greenland wasn't green. And we wasn't glad. We weren't glad about anything. Especially when we saw our ship sail away and leave us there on the beach. We stood there and watched it. And we felt like kids do when Mom and Pop go away leaving them alone in the dark house. You know how it is. Joe knew. Yanda, she goes, Johnny. Yeah. You know, I kind of know what my girl must have felt when I left. It ain't good to be the one left behind. Yeah. What's your girl like, Joe? My girl's my wife. Yeah? She pretty? Pretty? Yeah. Sure, she's pretty. And you know what? She fixes things. Broken chairs, leaky faucets, light plugs. You take most girls. They don't know nothing about anything. But my genie just let her smell something broken and right away she's popping through the house doing something about it. Yes, sir. There's the faucet leaking away and there's genie armed to the teeth with pliers, wrenches, and hammers. And all the time she's fixing the thing, she's looking like a, like a cock-eyed angel. We laugh so much, Johnny. Gee, how we laugh. How long you been married, Joe? Three weeks. Laughing. All the time laughing. Johnny, look. The ship's gone. Yeah, I know. Listen. What's that? I don't hear nothing. Yeah, yeah, sure, listen. It's a kind of, kind of a steady sound. Hear it? That. Sure, I hear that. It just keeps up, don't it? Don't you know what you're hearing, Joe? No. What? Silence, that's what. Nothing but silence. Cold, bare, lonely old silence. Sergeant John Hall? Yes, sir, Colonel. That's me, sir. Sergeant, there's a big job to be done up north, up on the ice cap. You've got to get it underway in a hurry. It'll be a thankless, nasty business. You interested? Well, sir, I... Good. If we can get regular weather observations from strategic points on the Greenland ice cap, we'll know in Greenland today exactly what the weather will be in Germany tomorrow. Don't need to tell you how important such information will be, especially to our air forces in England. Sir... In addition, the missions to assist in rescue operations for planes forced down its area. You'll also test cold weather equipment. Me, sir? But now there may be several Nazi stations concealed up there. We've uncovered and destroyed a great many. Still, there may be more. Moreover, you'll be isolated on that Godforsaken ice cap for at least a year. So on a mission of this sort, I would like volunteers only. Are you prepared to volunteer, Sergeant? Good. Now for the orders. You will proceed on or about September 1st under the command of Lieutenant... And so I was... volunteered for a year's duty on the ice cap, somewhere north of the south of Greenland. I didn't want to go. I knew it would be bad. I knew it would be as close to hell as a man could get and still be cold. That's why I didn't get it when Joe says to me... Hey, Johnny. I fixed it, so I'm going too. But don't look at me like that, you big jerk. Think I'll let you have all the fun by yourself? Can you imagine that, Lug? What a guy. So anyway, we started up to the ice cap to fight our part of the war. Ours wasn't no big war, and even our casualties wasn't very glamorous. You can't put a sling on a frozen lung, and when you get right down it with a few missing fingers is only important to the hand that loses them. Some of our guys died up in Greenland, but they didn't die wiping out enemy positions. They died because they fell down a crevasse. Know what a crevasse is? It's a thin crust of snow laid over miles deep of nothing. One minute a guy's walking along, talking to you, and the next minute he's a good three miles down from Livin'. And nothing you can do about it. Yet don't even hear him land on the bottom. Still, we knew we had it soft compared to what our guys in the Pacific and so we got used to it. To the dark and the silence and the cold. There was nine of us up on the ice cap. In the beginning it was okay. We kidded around a lot, and we wasn't busy gathering weather information, things like that. We organized a glee club. Joe was a conductor. He took it serious, too. Come on, you guys, a little closer on that harmony. What's more now? Come on! We were singing that first night, killing time, while Clarence, the radio guy, tinkered with a set. Then Clarence said, All ready to go, guys. Ready to send the first message to home base, sir. X, Y, 2, 2, 0, calling base command Southern Greenland. Attention base command. Come in, please. Come in. X, Y, 2, 2, 0, calling base command Southern Greenland. Base command. Come in. Will you come in? They don't come in, sir. Send your message anyway. Yes, sir. X, Y, 2, 2, 0, calling base command Southern Greenland. Message follows. X, Y, 2, 2, 0, in operation. We'll contact you each day at 600 hours. We'll send weather data each day at 600 hours. Base command. Do you hear me? What do you know? Come on, gang. Snap out of it. Let's sing. Come on, now, everybody. Get going with that guitar, template. You can't keep a tune, okay? But the least you can do is to keep time. All right, all right. Don't get sore. Okay, then take that part again now. Come on, this time, make it talk. There's a long, long, long, Southern Greenland. You hear me, base command. X, Y, 2, 2, call the message. The first couple months went by fast, even though we didn't hear from the outside. Then the days got funny. Days. Nights they were. Nights 20 hours long. We spent them waiting for the few little hours of daylight. For almost nine months, we waited for one thing or another practically all the time. We waited through blizzards for mail and for fresh supplies, which we needed bad. They never came, but we waited for them. This is Clifton Faderman bringing you Words at War, the Johnson-Wax program. Tonight we're presenting a dramatization based upon War Below Zero, the story of Americans fighting a war, an unglamorous war, a war against cold and loneliness and homesickness and arctic Greenland. We've seen these young men arrive in Southern Greenland, follow them as they went farther north to the loneliest military post on Earth, up on the Great Ice Cap, cut off from the outside world, cut off completely with not even an acknowledgement of their radio messages. But they kept going. We had to get out four weather reports every day. At first it was a snap, but later when the winter blizzards roared down at us, getting those four readings hard, real hard. As soon as we'd repair our instruments after one bad storm, another one would sock us, knocking down the weather veins and blowing the anemometer cups to a frozen kingdom come. And even after we broadcast the reports, we was never sure they got through to the Base Command. X, Y, 2, 2, 0, calling Base Command Southern Greenland. Attention, Base Command. Come in, please. Come in. They don't hear us. For three months now, they don't hear us. Go on, send the report. Yes, sir, but what's the good? They don't hear us. I tell you, they don't hear us, sir. For three months, I've been calling them every night. For three months, I have a Mr. Knight. Send it. Yes, sir. Attention, Base Command. X, Y, 2, 2, 0 reporting Area 429. I repeat, Area 429 at 600 hours ceiling on vertical front 030 visibility X05 temperature 45 degrees below zero wind direction northwest. And one day it happened. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. Over to zero, message. A flying fortress has crashed in your area. Approximate position between 30 and 35 miles east by northeast of your station. I say again. Downed plane between 30 and 35 miles east by northeast of your station. Data Crew undetermined. Rescue operations suggested, if at all possible, over and out. Double everyone. Hook up the dog. Yes, sir. Pass him the slashes. Yes, sir. Clarence, you stick by the radio. Come on, fellas. This is action! Come on, dogs. Let's go. Hey, what do you say to these pups anyway? Mush! You tell them to mush! Okay. Mush! Come on, you puppies. Mush! Let's go! Mush! Come on, Mush! In the middle of one of the worst storms we'd had, we started out for the crashed plane. All of us. All of us started out, but we come back. We come back because we couldn't get through. We tried. For two days we fought through the wind and the snow, but it drove us back. On the fourth day the storm let up a little and Joe went up and spoke to the lieutenant. Excuse me, sir, but I and Johnny's been thinking. Yeah, Joe, what is it? Well, sir, I and Johnny would like to try for that plane ourselves. We figured that we'd stand a better chance for just the two of us and the dog sled. You see sir, them guys in the plane must need help pretty bad and besides, sir, we figured it's better with just two of us because... Because why, Joe? Because if we don't come back, well, there'll be somebody left to come after us. You let us go. We slugged our way through the wind and the snow. Snow. It was more like the sky was firing millions of sharp stones at us. And cold. Why? Was it cold? Hey, Joe. Joe, it's cold. Yeah, what'd you expect? Steam heat? Mesh? How far we come? About a mile. We've been at it seven hours and we come a mile. Yeah. Come on, let's keep going. Sure, but come on, Johnny, keep moving. Mesh? We kept moving. Through the snow and through the cold. And after we'd gone about 17 miles, suddenly the storm broke on us again. Johnny! Hurry up, Johnny! We've got to unhitch the dogs quick. We did. We unhitched the dogs and quick-built a windbreak. Then we dug trenches. One for the pups and one for us. We pitched our tents, stuck an ice axe through the hole in the top so we could get air and then we crawled in. We crawled in and we lay there for three days. For three days we lay there in the middle of the ice cap with snow and wind roaring around us like express trains. For dinner that first night we had dried up beans and snow. It was Christmas Eve. Hey, Joe, you ain't talked about your wife, none. Yeah, I know. What's the matter? You two had a fight? Yeah, yeah. How? My mental telepathy, maybe? I cut it out, Johnny. Oh, look here, Joe. I was only trying. Forget it. Oh, sure. She? Johnny. Yeah? Sorry. Well, that's OK. It's just that, well, you see, ever since I've been here, I ain't had a letter from her. That's OK. None of us has had letters. I ain't complaining about that. It's just that, Johnny, I think I'm going nuts. What do you mean? I can't remember what she looks like. You what? I've been gone only 18 months, and I can't remember what she looks like. You know, you know, every day I try to put it together. Blue eyes, black hair, pretty smile. Every day I try to put it together, and it don't come out, Jeannie. We used to laugh so much, and I don't remember her laugh. I can't remember what her voice sounds like. Listen, Johnny, I can't remember these things about my own wife. I can't. Oh, Canada. But don't you see? Joe! Yeah, yeah, sure. That's what I mean. I think I'm going nuts, Johnny. Shut up. No. You want a color blowing your top? OK. Well, things happening up on the ice cap. Anyway, Joe got over it, and the next day we started again for the wrecked plane. The going was tough, real tough. I was so tired, so sleepy. And finally my legs folded up under me, and I thought I couldn't go no further. Johnny, come on. Will you? There's the plane. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, I see. Come on, let's run for it. OK, OK. You go on, and I'll take the dogs, and hey, Joe. Joe. Listen, Joe, where are you, Joe? It's all right, Joe. It's OK, Phil. I'll get you. You keep calling. I'll find you. You keep yelling now. He'd fallen down a crevasse. He'd fallen down and landed on an ice ledge, about 15 feet under. Under that little ice ledge was about seven miles of nothing. I quick got out of rope, and hauled, and hauled, and prayed, and cussed, and finally got him up. When he got to the top, all he said was, I lost my cap. I paid 15 bucks for that cap. It was special. 15 bucks, and I lost it. Too much for a cap. I know. And that was when we realized we couldn't get to the plane at all. The crevasse Joe fell into, ran around in the whole circle, and the plane sat in the middle on an island device. We did everything we could think of to get through. We threw the rope across, but there was nothing out for it to catch on to. We yelled, and hauled, but the guys belonging to the plane either didn't hear us, or they was wounded or dead. We ran around the circle thinking maybe there was a narrow space to cross over. Come on, Johnny, let's go around again. Maybe we missed it the first time. We tried to think of something. For two days, we tried and tried, but last we knew there wasn't no way. We stood and looked at the plane. Them guys in there don't even know we come for them. They don't even know we come for them. After a while, we turned and started back through the storm to our station. And one month later, we found out that the crew of the wreck bomber had already been rescued by a Coast Guard plane. I would have told us sooner, but there was no way. Not long after that, we was relieved from duty on the ice cap. A party commanded by Colonel Bernd Balken came up and took us out. We was glad to go. Well, Mr. Faderman, that's all, except that we stopped at the base command on our way back to the states. And the Colonel, who had volunteered me, told us that we'd done a real good job. He told us our messages got through even when we thought they hadn't. He said we'd helped our guys bomb Germany. He said we was a credit to everybody. Then he said something else. He looked at me and right out loud, he said. Tell me, Sergeant, now that you're headed back to the states for a nice long rest, tell me. Just what did you think of the ice cap? So I told him. So he told him, eh? I'd like to have heard it, Mr. Faderman. Me too, Jack. Now, how about next week's show? Well, I think it's a crook. I'll wager a modest sum that'll make more than one good American, jump out of his chair, grab a club, and start marching towards Radio City. I'll tell you the title of the book in a minute, but first, Jack, I'd like to take your customary commercial time to present a message on behalf of our government. It's this. One of the things that could have beaten us in this war is an uncontrolled rise in the cost of living, otherwise known as inflation. Now, by the use of sound common sense, we Americans have managed to hold the line on rising prices for over a year, but we must continue to hold the line. Our country now stands at the crossroads. The danger of an uncontrolled rise in prices continues and will continue until final military victory in a stable peace make it possible for us once again to fill the marketplace with all the goods and services Americans want to buy. As I've said, we've shown we can hold the line against rising prices. For over a year, we've proved we can do it, but we can't let up yet, not for an instant. The battle against inflation is and must be a continuing battle. Another kind of war, perhaps, but equally important for those of us at home. And one we will win, Mr. Faderman. And now what about that provocative-sounding book for next week? Well, it's called Traveler from Tokyo. The traveler himself is a man who's lived in Japan and who has a good deal to tell us about the Japanese. Things many of us never knew before. Things many of us would rather die than believe. Still, Ambassador Gruh endorses every word this traveler speaks, and Ambassador Gruh is a man who knows if anybody does. So tune in. It'll be interesting, I promise you. Now, this is Clifton Faderman who has been pinch-hitting for Carl van Doren, inviting you to be with us again next week. Until then, goodbye. Tonight's dramatization was written by Edith Sommer and featured Paul Mann. Music was composed and conducted by Morris Memorsky, and the production was under the direction of Anton M. Lieder. Don't miss next week when the Johnson Wax program presents Traveler from Tokyo on Words at War. Jack Costello speaking, this is the National Broadcasting Company.