 Beyond that point where electioneering stops, there was some of the freest air to breathe that there has ever been. Standing in the sun on the safe streets of their towns, the American voters in 1944 knew that wars can begin in polling places. Wartime shortages and priorities had turned the clock back for transportation and some of the means of travel on the roads that day had taken voters to the polls for the election of Woodrow Wilson. There's never been anything pretentious about the looks of the places where you cast your vote. Firehouses, laundries, buildings as different as the ways of life and the kinds of country we have served as polling places for the people of the United States to make a decision that will be respected in the conference halls of London, Paris, Moscow and eventually in the ruins of Berlin and Tokyo. The enemies of democracy have always claimed that a people is independent in their sympathies as varied in their origins and religious beliefs as the people of America can never choose a leader for themselves. Instead of these orderly lines, the enemies of democracy predicted riots and disorders of the polling places in 1944. Instead of a record-breaking registration, the enemies of democracy predicted apathy or disinterest or no election at all. Name? Helen Shaw. Occupation? Secretary. Race? Income? None of the rest of it matters. Lewis Stone. Occupation? Actor. Occupation housewife and mother. Occupation farmer. Occupation actress. Occupation manicurist. Florist, clerk, steam-fitter. Occupation shipyard worker. USO entertainer. On November 7th, the free voter in the United States. Voters tracked alkali dust from Texas into the polling places. Georgia red clay. New England gravel. Soot from Pittsburgh sidewalks. California sand and New York dirt. A lot of votes were cast by people living in trailer camps and crowded rooming houses. Brought to strange towns by the demand for war workers. But the ballot count kept rising, threatening to top the 1942 total of 28 million before noon. And late in the afternoon, at the end of their shift, shipyard workers headed directly from the yard gates to the polls. Gamblers were giving odds on Roosevelt, but no one else would make a prediction. When the lights began to go on in New York, forecasters still looked to the closest popular vote in recent history. In Times Square, barricades were knocked together to protect the store windows from the crowds that were already bunching up on street corners. Waiting to get the returns from the traveling sign on the Times building. Waiting to breathe in some of the excitement of the big night. At six o'clock, returns began to come in from the small towns in the north. It looked like the biggest registration on record and before the day was over, 50 million ballots would be counted. Towns in Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont, showed a marked U.E. trend. As soon as the ballots had been tabulated, the score went out on the wire. And first string radio announcers began to take over the microphones. In New York, Bob Trout began a broadcasting stint that would last until breakfast. Counted soldier votes ran about parallel to the civilian choice, showing that the opinions of the GIs and the people back home were the same. Dewey took an early lead in Connecticut and Missouri. Voters in Italy heard that Roosevelt was leading in Arizona. France heard that Dewey was ahead in Colorado, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas. California, Georgia, Connecticut, Delaware were going to the president. Arizona, Alabama, Idaho, Illinois followed. Most Americans stayed at home and close to the radio after supper. At 9.30, Vice President Wallace predicted a Roosevelt victory, leading the other forecasters by a good three hours. At 10 o'clock, Pittsburgh's Allegheny County turned in a lead for Roosevelt, upsetting Republican predictions in a vital state. And from then on in, the president began to gather the lead that brought him victory. You could hear the shouting of the crowds for 15 blocks in either direction. Picked up by the airwaves, you could hear them above the noise of the rain in Hittkin Forest. You could hear them on the China airstrips, where the B-29s were warming up for the blow at Tokyo. They were cheering the victory of their candidate, and they were living proof that government, even in a time of war, can be a question of conscience, and not a matter of force. Pollutions are a string of island bases extending over a thousand miles westward from the Alaskan Peninsula. These islands, the Japs once considered a back door to the United States. But when the door was opened, forget about incident. And now our back door is a front door to Tokyo. Bountiful Mother Nature has endowed these islands with all the rich variety of weather from her abundant storehouse. Gracious. Such conditions are almost unbelievable. Nevertheless, that's the conditions that prevail. Through these rapidly changing weather conditions, the GI is constantly faced with a problem of what to wear. Here, a soldier sets out on an important mission. A vegetation on the island is the tall grass covering the marshy tundra. There are no trees. You're telling me. Another factor that complicates life here is the thick, gummy mud, peculiar to this region. I don't mind the mud, but George hates it. Claude don't like it neither. Owing to the volcanic origin of the islands, there are frequent earthquakes which are far reaching in their effect. It often gets quite breezy up here. It was, as they are called, died down as suddenly as they arise. But wind or no wind, nothing can stop this man from the accomplishment of his mission. The problem of getting over snowy terrain has been solved by converting vehicles into so-called snowgoes. One of the greatest hazards to fliers in the Arctic is the sudden formation of ice on the plains. Well, what's this? Oh, it's him again. Strips present a serious problem. It's almost impossible to keep their surface entirely free of moisture. That's the way things are up here. Unbelievable conditions. Unbelievable. I mean, nevertheless, conditions that prove...