It was a relatively short hop from the Azores to Marrakech, Morocco. North Africa had a different look to it. It was hot and palm trees were everywhere. After landing, I was told to put the rudder and elevator clips in place. While I was doing this one of the passengers, a depressed Lt.(H G Saunders), leaned against the horizontal stabilizer and said that he was very lonely, especially so because he had just been married. I turned and faced him and said, "Lt., I'm married too and we all have loved ones back home that we miss."

A jeep was waiting to take us all to our quarters. The officers were dropped off and we were taken to the enlisted men's tent area. After cleaning up we found the mess hall which consisted of tables and benches under a tent fly. The servers in the mess line were Italian POWs. One said to me that they didn't want to fight because they were family men. I thought to myself, "So were we but that wasn't stopping us." After chow, Maj. Briggs found me and instructed me to go to our plane and stay with it until relieved.

This was the first of many nights I slept on the parked plane on our way overseas. A C-47 has quite a slope to the fuselage while at rest and that made it hard for me to get comfortable. After a while I settled down on the floor and just as I was about to drop off, I heard a knock on the door of the aircraft. I cautiously opened it a crack to see a grinning black face above a tan uniform topped off with a red fez. "Fumez?" he inquired. Drawing on my meager high school French I realized he wanted a cigarette. I didn't smoke but I had some remnants of K rations which always included a couple so I gave them to him. A pleased Senegalese soldier replied, "Merci, merci" as he walked away. The next morning I was relieved of guard duty in order to get breakfast and for a short trip to the PX.

The PX was in a small room of a white masonry building. The room was filled with soldiers and it was impossible to get to the counter to see what was for sale, let alone buy anything. After a while I realized the reason for the crowd. The sales person behind the counter, a very attractive young French girl with a delightful accent, and wearing a mini skirt to advantage, was basking in the attention bestowed by several dozen soldiers. Quickly assessing the problem I gave up and left.

We departed that day for Tunis which is one place of which I have very little memory. I must have been there. I have a poor picture of a nondescript building and another of a street scene on the back of which was written "Tunis", and the rest of my companions say that we had been there. On the other hand my "short snorter" shows a banknote from Algeria between one of Morocco and Egypt. Could it be that our plane stopped over in Algiers instead of Tunis?

Our flight from Tunis left the foothills and plateaus associated with the Atlas Mountains and we were now headed for Libya and beyond. The terrain below was monochromatic. Everything including towns and villages were the same tan color like bumps and warts protruding from the earth. Even the occasional mountain poked barren rock through the sand. I was reminded of the recent struggle below us by abandoned vehicles, a tank here, a truck there, and sometimes a downed plane. I saw a once busy airstrip now unoccupied, it's runway cut into segments by drifting sand. My thoughts slipped back a few months to Camp Gruber, Oklahoma where I had been training as an Infantry rifleman. On one occasion I had guarded, with loaded M1 rifle, members of the once mighty Africa Corps. Now I was flying over the area where the tides of battle shifted back and forth until Rommel's army was soundly defeated. The war was getting closer.