 The Cavalcade of America, sponsored by E.I. DuPont de Nemours and Company of Wilmington, Delaware, make her a better things for better living through chemistry, present Lovely Lady with Ted D'Costia and Edwin Jerome. Before we begin our play, here's a suggestion that'll help you do a good job if you're planning to redecorate a room in your home. Try DuPont Speedyzy wall finish, the new easy to use wall paint. You just thin Speedyzy with water. It covers walls with one quick coat even covers dingy wallpaper. For less than three dollars you can make the room look like new with DuPont Speedyzy. Every day we read the headlines of the war and the headlines and the stories which cataloged the campaigns are pointed at mass operation. The Great Raids, the huge sea battles, the mighty fire power. But behind the headlines seldom finding their way into the stories of the turning points on which the campaigns often hinge. Sometimes these turning points are the result of an accident or luck, but more often they are the result of alertness and ingenuity and work. Tonight our DuPont Cavalcade is the factual story of one of those turning points that vitally affected an American division and perhaps decided the fate of an entire army. The DuPont Company presents Lovely Lady with Ted D'Costia as Private Manelli and Edwin Jerome as the General on the Cavalcade of America. On a mountain in Sicily the commanding general of an American division is in conference with the colonel who is his chief of engineers. Bill, I have called in to give you the G2 report. Yes, I can't overstate how serious the situation is. Our fifth armored division is in plenty of trouble up ahead. Our intelligence shows the Germans will counterattack Wednesday. We've got to get to that division's aid by then. Give us four days. We'll move up a dawn. March order will be out in an hour. And do you intend to move the entire division, General? That's right, Bill. I'd hate to see the casualty lists if we're not there to reinforce that armored group. Well, this should be a nice little change for us. It was a cinch to move 15,000 men in Africa. All we had down on the desert was space. That's right, Bill. All we got up here is no space. We've got to move 3,000 vehicles. Why, there are miles along that road where we'll be traveling single file. That'll be awfully embarrassing when one of our trucks breaks. No embarrassment, Bill. Pitch it off the cliff. Oh, we'll make out all right, but there are going to be problems. Well, I can't remember when there were any problems. We had our troubles landing at Casa Blanca. There wasn't any express highway into Bezetti. We'll always have our troubles getting to the enemy. Big part, sir. Meeted action method, classification secret. C.G. River for Orange. Previous instructions amended. Intelligence shows enemy counterattack begins Tuesday. You'll arrive at Rendezvous one day earlier than planned. Well, General Eisenhower solved all our problems. We're not moving up tomorrow morning. We're moving up tonight. I'll alert my advance party immediately. We've got to be ready for mines, roadblocks, washouts, and landslides. We may reach every one of those obstacles. Well, I don't care how many obstacles we reach, as long as they don't stop it. 100 yards from the general's tent. There are other men of action holding another conference. This one is presided over by Private Manelli. What I want to know is, what are we sitting up to with our nose stuck in the clouds for? Ah, them brass hats. Always slowing down to catch their wind. We ain't ever getting the Italy sitting here in our toe case. Well, I suppose they got a lot of problems up ahead. That's a real narrow road for one thing. Maybe room enough for only one vehicle. Suppose one of those vehicles breaks down. For such a vehicle, I got one answer. Throw it off the cliff. Take the driver out first. Well, it seemed like if we were down in the desert, there they'd have some excuse for holding us up. But up here, where we're all bunched together, right, it's a sin. Ah, they'll figure out some excuse. They'll blame it on logistics or some other headquarters where nobody can understand. Now, you know Manelli, those fellas haven't had the same advantages you had. Maybe they have reasons that sound good to them. Maybe they're tired. I don't want to hear no excuses. My barber back in the states, give me a girl to look out the napple. Excuses do not interest me. The way I figure it, we have about two weeks to make this move. Now, we're to take it slow as they move those big cranes out first and follow them a couple of days later with a tea. You remind me of a guy back in his thickest. Oh, here we go again. He was always arranging for the midgets to follow the giraffes in the parade. Are you giving us that circus routine again, Manelli? You don't believe me? Come see Manelli, the tightrope walker. Manelli defies death on the high wire. Come on, you don't believe me? You don't believe I was on the high wire? I don't believe you were ever in a high chair. I wish I knew how long they were planning for us to be back here. I don't know whether or not to put shells in the foxhole. There's only one way they'll ever get anywhere. Move forward. Let me take lovely lady. Put me in lovely lady and send me forward. I love jambos. How many times I gotta tell you guys don't call me jambos? I used to be a tightrope walker, not an elephant. Have all regiments reported to the Senate? Yes, sir, the last just came in. They're all standing by. How about the artillery? Colonel Monroe reports that 155 is ready for march orders. Contact regimental commanders. Yes, sir. Master, sir. And put me through to regimental commanders on a conference hookup. Yes. Now, hold on. Oh, uh, come in, Bill. My engineers are hauling at the least, General. When do we pull out? Immediately. What about that tunnel up ahead? Oh, not a prayer. It'll be sealed up tight. It's a simple demolition job for the Nazis that never skipped that. You all set the clearance? Oh, we'll clear it. That's good, because we'll be there at dawn. 50 miles and seven hours? That's right. And, uh, Bill, don't worry. If we get a ticket for speeding, I think I can get it fixed. Sir, I have the regimental commanders on the phone. All right, I'll take it. Gentlemen, this is your verbal substitute for a published march order. Observing all security precautions, this division will move out at once. My single command is that nothing, nothing, must delay this division. That's all, gentlemen. Good luck, and let's get out of here. Bill, thanks, man. If you want to get someplace, get up and go. You must have heard us talking. That's a long one, Ellie. I have to get my men loaded. See you later, kid. Got a kick with that camera. You guys are sure lucky being up ahead with the advance party. You wish lovely lady and I could be up front. Where do you got enough to do to clear out? Write a letter home. Sure. Give my love to the sword swallow. Okay, wise guy. Can it, fellas. Here's the canal. Thanks. All right, men. As you are. We've got a tough job up ahead. Got to open up the mouth of a tunnel. This unit will roll at the head of the column. And I want bulldozers to go up with it. Did you say bulldozers, sir? Yes, we'll need the tractors up front. You mean you want my bulldozers, sir? If you drive one, yes. You mean you want lovely ladies, sir? What the devil are you talking about? Forgiving, Colonel. Most of us fall in love with girls. Manelli fell in love with a tractor. Come on, Manelli. Get that bulldozer moving. We're going to get that hunk of junk out of there. Come on, lovely. Come on, lady. Don't fail me, darling. Come on, baby. Pay no attention to them rambles. That's it, sweetie. You can do it if you try. That's it. Here we go, lady. You and me leading the parade. We certainly covered ground during the night, General. You're making good time. Well, sir, one thing that'll hold us up, that tunnel. You ought to be there in an hour. Now, let's see. 515, the advance party's there just about now. Far out ahead of the column, the chief of engineers and his advance party wind cautiously along the road shelf of the Sicilian cliff. At this point, the lofty narrow trail juts out over the sea. The vehicles have barely a foot of clearance. Well, Captain, we'll be getting to it just around this bend. Yes, sir. Holy smoke. Do you see what I see? Sure. There's the tunnel. Yes, there's the tunnel, but it's open. You're right, Colonel. Oh, they must have blown the other end. No, they didn't. Look, daylight, right through. Wait till the general hears about this. What's the story, Bill? General, it's incredible. The tunnel is open from end to end. You can see for yourself. Mine? Oh, plenty of mines, but we've just finished clearing them. How'd you do it so fast? Well, the tunnel floor is rocked. Those mines stuck out like tulips. It was a sin. You checked every foot? Yes, sir, we have. The side, roof, nose, sign, and an explosive charge? Absolutely none. I'd be willing to stand in the middle of that tunnel until our last vehicle is through. Well, that won't be necessary, Bill. Hop in with us. Right, sir. All right, driver, let's go. What a great this is, waltzing through this tunnel without any problems. Let's go through this tunnel without any delay. Why, we just picked up 24 hours. Do you remember Hitler ever making us a present of a day? Well, maybe we were crowding them. I just don't like the smell of this. General, maybe you're being a little too pessimistic. Maybe, but if I know anything about the way the German army fights, they neglected that tunnel for a reason. The reason being, we've got them on the run. Why, the whole road shelf is gone. I've never seen anything like it. Let's take a look at this. Empty space. And the blue Mediterranean below. They've blown it right down into the sea. A whole chunk of road. Well, I've got to admire this one. Well, stop, General. Stop dead. That gap must be 200 feet wide. How far down would you say it was? About 20 stories. Well, we were prepared to cross any obstacles on this road. Yeah, but they blew the road away. I guess we didn't crowd them enough. Lieutenant. Yes, sir. Take a radio message. Don't bother to code it. Send it in the clear. There's no news to the Nazis. Ready, sir? Commanding General Mediterranean Theater. Division halted. German demolition of roadshelves complete. Impossible to get troops and vehicles down to sea for water passage around Gaff. Hurry, hurry, hurry to wait, wait, wait. Here we are again sitting around on our bottom. Here we stop because there's a hole in the road a little ways ahead. How do you like that? There's a hole in the road. A lousy little hole in the road holding up 15,000 men in a senior arena waiting for me and Naples. General's a nice guy, but sometimes I think he's getting awful bad advice. There's no need calling the halt here. You're 100% right. Some of them brass hats are dreamers. They see a dinner plate in the road, they got to stop to see if it's a mine. They don't look at things with a practical and a fine. That's right, you got a hole in your road, you just fill it up. Sure, that lovely lady put some date in it. Oh, of course, Manelli wouldn't have any trouble at all. Not Manelli, the tightrope walker. Just let them flip a cable across and he'd walk it. Manelli couldn't walk a six-lane highway. Okay, you cynics. Anyway, I got my own answer. Sling a bridge over that trapdoor and let's get going. That's it. We've been putting up bridges ever since we hit Africa. Timber, trestle, fixed trestle, semi-permanent steel treadway. Let them name it. Sure, nothing stopped us yet. Maybe we're underestimating this thing. There may be difficulties we don't know about. Difficulties? Difficulties is our business. Impossible move troops and equipment up sheer mountain cliffs. Uh, come in, Bill. Yes, sir. No alternate route to Rendezvous. The vision is regular bridging equipment unsuited for situations. I hate to interrupt, sir. Ah, yes, Bill. I believe my engineers can put a bridge across that hole. We've been scouting for lumber and I think we've got enough to put up a timber trestle. Timber, eh? Mm-hmm. How soon can you begin construction? Oh, I'd say about six hours. Were you settled for four? Well, all right, sir. Well, that means you'll start at noon. How soon before it's ready? General, the division will be across that gap in three days. We're allowed for a 24-hour delay to clear the mouth of the tunnel. That chunk of empty space up ahead is now the mouth of the tunnel. Therefore, we'll get the bridge up in 24 hours. What? General, you're not serious. Well, sir, a bridge has to have support. My men have got to dig them right into vertical rock. Lives of an awful lot of troops depend on our getting to that armored group up ahead. This can be the turning point of our whole campaign. I'm aware of that, sir. But 24 hours, you're asking for a miracle. I'm not asking, Bill. I'm merely ordering. You are listening to Lovely Lady with Ted de Corsier as Private Manelli and Edwin Jerome as the general on the Cavalcade of America sponsored by E.I. Dupont de Nemours and Company of Wilmington, Delaware, maker of better things for better living through chemistry. Our Cavalcade play tonight is the story of an American division in the invasion of Sicily, the story of an insurmountable obstacle that faced that division and the way the division overcame it to mark the turning point of the campaign and perhaps decide the fate of an entire army. As our Cavalcade play continues, the division has been halted by a deep chasm that crosses the mountain trail where the Germans in their retreat had blown a huge section of the road into the sea. The commanding general has ordered the bridge to be thrown across that chasm within 24 hours. In the opinion of the engineer colonel, the general has ordered a miracle. Merely ordering a miracle, ordering something unique in the experience of a highly skilled engineer colonel, ordering the spanning of space with no starting point. Just build a bridge. You know what that means? It means a complicated and technical series of steps. It means taking what these men learned back in Georgia and putting it in practice over here in Sicily. Building a bridge means seating the envan, placing the abutment, building the support. It means setting the trestle, laying the springer, laying the side rails. It means these and a dozen more, all of them difficult at any place and time. But on this precarious cliff, building a bridge means America winning a war. Hey, Louis, get that hook in there. Can it wound holes? Pass me that wire, will you Harry? Ready down there? This thing is feeding the stuffings out of us colonel. Those supports won't stay put. They've got to stay put, Captain. That's all right, sir. We've been working over eight hours and haven't built the supports yet. Drill deeper into that rock, that'll have to do it. Building a bridge is one thing. Building it is another. I think the general's order is pretty unreasonable. Well, maybe. But if it weren't for a series of such unreasonable orders, this division would still be wallowing around outside of what is downtown. Look. Over there, at the side of the road. I don't see anything but mountains. Well, the old man is sitting there against that mountain. He's been sitting there ever since he started, rooting us on. What are you going? Well, if you want that bridge by noon, I'd better get back to the men. What? You can't get the lead out of it. Manelli, your country needs you. Stop the yapping, these timbers ain't too thick. Some army. A bulldozer man lugging planks around. This thing you know they'll be replacing me with a whack. Marlowe, when was the last time you were up till three in the morning? Last night. It was a good hour. Maybe we should go to the Riviera for a rest. Hey, look out ahead of you. Side of the road. That's the general sitting there. Gosh, nearly forgot. Hey, Manelli. Manelli, step easy. Now what are you guys whispering about? I need no work. All right, gold brick off the road. What's that? On your feet, the old man wants this bridge by noon. But you don't want to work it out of the way. The old man. Sorry. Sorry. Some dog faces just got our talent for doing no good. I can't see a thing over here. Hey, Joe. Blow that light this way. Coming up. I can't think the least they do is arrange for a full moon. How much longer we got to go? It's four thirty. Seven and a half more hours to make it. Take up on that winch, Morrissey. Not much more cable left. Hey, Ruben, I'll show you a cigarette winch. Okay, but watch this. When you drop half a dozen in the ocean already. Okay, let's have it. Got it. Thanks, fellas. This is what building a bridge means. It means the voices of men through the night calling to each other, encouraging each other, helping each other. It means teamwork, ingenuity, guts and sweat. It means a magnificent display of one type of American power that Germans didn't figure on, work power. And with an hour to go, building a bridge means, next to the last step, drift to make. The great gap in the road shall have a block long, two hundred feet deep. There's almost content. Wooden supports now jut out from the rock cliff. Another set of supports jut up at an angle to meet them. These two must be fastened together before the floor boards of the bridge can be laid across. Well, sir, we almost made it. What do you mean, Captain? Almost. We're free. We're late, Colonel. We're just ready to drift in the trestle to the support. Well, it's eleven o'clock. We still have an hour. Hammering those pins in is a pickless job. We've thought of the set up scaffolding to lower a man with a jackhammer over each support one at a time. That'll take all afternoon. Four hours anyway, sir. We'll save that time as much as we can, sir. We've tried. Really tried. Go away, follow me. I beg your pardon, sir. Yes, what is it? I don't mean to be critical, Colonel, but this is not a very intelligent way of doing it. What do you do? Well, I wouldn't take the time to set up a scaffold. I'd send a certain man out on those planks with his jackhammer. He could finish the job at no time. We'd be rolling over by noon. Those planks are only two inches wide. A man would get killed out there. Oh, maybe an ordinary man, sir, but not me. You see, Colonel, I can work those planks. Forgive him, Colonel. Manelli thinks he used to be a human fly or something in civilian life. Like a high-prop walker or a high-wire man. The vibrations from the jackhammer would throw a mountain goat off balance. Sure, Colonel, but I'm no goat, and I can do it. All right, soldier. The general ordered a miracle. Good luck. Look at that guy. He's going nuts out there. He's going to fall. What a splash he's going to make. He's going to fall. This is for kids. Two-inch board. I could walk it blindfolded and without a umbrella. These guys should have seen me when I was performing in the circuit. A Keegan, a Skoggy, a Duke in the Western Circuit. My name and type that big. Manelli the Magnificent. Manelli in his educated tone. Just like in the circuit. He's going to fall. Hey, shut up. Don't scare him. He's going to make it. Son of a gun, he's going to make it. Come on, Manelli. Go to it, boy. I am right in the middle. Enough of it. Turn around like the old days. Now, Mr. Jackhammer, let's get this show on the road. Here's one for eight hours. One for going. And one for rolling. There. Secure all around. Didn't think I could do it, huh? I could give him a better show if I only had my umbrella. Manelli the Magnificent. Get him some. Now for the next one. I told you he'd do it. The guy's a genius. I didn't think it could be done. Son of a gun, he was a high-wire man, Colonel. Well, I'll be... That's the greatest act I've seen since the hippodrome. One minute to noon, General. The bridge is completed. We're going to send a jeep over for a test run. Great job. Yes, thanks to that crazy soldier why he went out on those planks. What's that man's name? Private Manelli. I beg your pardon, Colonel. Okay, Manelli. What have we done now that's not very intelligent? Well, Colonel, it's not that exactly. It's just that a jeep is too light and won't prove nothing. Now, if you send me over and lovely lady, it'll mean something. If that bridge will hold a bulldozer, it'll hold anything in a division. Well, it's true a bulldozer is. Thank you, sir. I knew you'd see it my way. I've got room for a passenger. Corporal Manelli. Corporal? Holy gelito. But, General, you can't come. If this bridge don't hold, we're going right down at the ocean. Well, if it's strong enough for you, Manelli, it's strong enough for me. Soaring dear. Come on, lovely lady. Here we go. Thank you, Ted Ducosta and Edwin Jerome. Now, here is Ted Pearson speaking for the DuPont Company about peacetime explosives in wartime. Invasion left Cherbourg Harbor a tangled mass of wreckage. The retreating Germans destroyed everything they could. Docks were a mass of broken stone and twisted steel, sunken ships and wrecked crafts underwater cluttered the harbor. But we needed a port. It was just because we needed a port and the which to funnel men and supplies that we had landed on the beaches near Cherbourg in the first place. Tangled, jammed, cluttered, smashed as it was, we had to be cleared for traffic fast. So as they had done earlier at Naples, Navy Seabees and Army engineers went to work. And in less than 48 hours, supplies were being landed in Cherbourg Harbor. Dynamite is not a military explosive. It can't be used, for instance, in a gun. But one stick of 60% gelatin dynamite, one small stick, 8 inches long and not much thicker through than a broom handle, will move a couple of tons of rocks. Works that might otherwise require long hours of labor can often be done far more easily with dynamite. One of the most powerful tools that man commands. It's because dynamite has this superhuman ability to get heavy work done in a short time that every United States Army division in the South Seas uses tons of dynamite. You've seen pictures of some of the things dynamite has accomplished for our forces in the South Pacific. One outfit out there had to build an airfield in jig time with no raw materials other than the coral of which their island itself was made. Dynamite dug the coral, providing the material for a hard, smooth flying field. Another common and very important use for dynamite in our country and in tropical areas is the drainage of swamp. Here sticks of dynamite are planted in a row, then fired to dig a ditch of the needed depths and widths. Dynamite is also doing other jobs, quarrying, rock to build roads, selling trees and removing stumps to build airports. It's removing boulders, deepening harbors, breaking up derelicts, and doing hundreds of other jobs to help men shorten the war. Whether it's clearing and rebuilding harbors like shearbergs, draining swamps in the South Pacific, or constructing hydroelectric dams at home, many of the war's heaviest, hardest construction jobs have been speeded by dynamite, peacetime product of the DuPont Company, maker of better things for better living through chemistry. Next Monday evening, Cavalcade presents the conquest of Kleinheim, the story of the centuries old fight against malaria, dread killer of mankind. The story also of a brilliant scientific victory in a research laboratory that enabled two young Americans to cancel out of great Japanese military success. Tonight's Cavalcade play was written by Daniel Taradash and Julian Blaustein. The orchestra and musical score were under the direction of Donald Borey. This is Roland Winter sending best wishes from Cavalcade sponsor EI DuPont du Namours and company of Wilmington, Delaware. American industry is an urgent need of forge and foundry workers. The need has been heightened to emergency proportions by the invasion. Husky, healthy men of any age whether without foundry experience are being asked by the Warman Power Commission to enroll for a 90-day period to bring production up to quotas. Men who qualify will be given a release from their present job providing it is not one of critical urgency. And at the end of their 90-day stint will be returned to their present status. 20,000 men are needed at once. Men taking the jobs will be making a real contribution to the war in a time of critical need and will receive good wages. All applicants are invited to telegraph collect to forge and foundry chief Warman Power Commission giving their name, address, present employment and draft status. Men who qualify will be notified in a day or two. The Cavalcade of America came to you from New York. This is the National Broadcasting Company.