It was exciting to see landing ramps go down on each side of the craft’s bow, like stairs descending into the shallow surf. The nurses watched while the first men went ashore, their helmets on, their bodies padded with their packs, their guns held high above the lapping waves.
Then a line of men formed from the long ramps to the sandy beach as guard while the women went ashore. Nancy, Mabel and fifty others, took off their G.I. shoes, stuffed their stockings inside, tied their shoes together by the laces and hung them around their necks. They rolled the legs of their coveralls high above their knees, and with many excited squeals and giggles hurried down the ramps and into the cool water breaking on the shore.
As soon as she reached the beach Nancy sat down to put on her shoes for the sands were burning hot. Before she rose she paused to say a silent prayer of thanksgiving that at last she was on one of the Pacific islands, the goal of her dreams these many months.
“Surely looks as though we’re in for tropical living here,” remarked Mabel, glancing at the jungle wall not far from the lapping tide.
“Look farther down the beach,” Nancy pointed out. “Isn’t that a marvelous sight?”
As far as they could see along the beach, landing craft of every sort were pushing up to shore. The one next their own infantry craft was a huge affair, and even while they looked its large doors opened toward land. A tank rumbled forth into shallow water, and rolled up to dry land. It was followed by several others.
“Gosh, doesn’t it thrill you to think how fast and efficiently our country works,” said Mabel. “They tell me it wasn’t till the fall of 1942 that the first models of these landing ships were made—and look at this already.”
“Surely the Japs can’t beat a country like ours!” said Nancy proudly.
But even while she spoke there came a rumbling of heavy guns far beyond that jungle wall. Mabel had taken off her helmet to let the wind play through her red hair, that was like a nimbus around her face in the sunshine. Suddenly at the sound of firing she slapped the helmet back on her head.
“Say, but that doesn’t sound as if it’s going to be so easy to whip them!” she groaned.
Farther out in the deep water they could see troops still being transferred from the great transports to the landing craft. Another landing boat pushed up to the beach close to where they stood. It didn’t look to be longer than about a hundred feet. When its ramp was lowered it disgorged so many trucks and small tanks they wondered how they had all been stored inside.