Tag: Africa

Pocket Guide to North Africa, 1943

On: By: Romeyn

After the close of the First World War, one of the great strategists of Europe predicted that the next great war would be won in North Africa. He foresaw such a rise in air power as would make the Mediterranean Sea virtually a defile for all shipping. If their enemies were to come into complete possession of the Mediterranean shores, an almost insupportable strain would be put upon the nations dependent on sea power. On the other hand, if the North African coast could be held by
the sea-power nations — Great Britain and the United States — its air and sea bases would become the spring-board to the reconquest of Europe and the final defeat of
the forces dominating that continent.

THREE YEARS OF STRUGGLE

FOR more than three years, events have sustained this prophecy, and the armed forces of the United Nations and of the Axis have been locked in a tremendous struggle for North Africa. One campaign has followed another across its desert spaces. None was finally successful. For a time it seemed as if the whole of the Mediterranean and the land which surrounded it would be lost to our
side…

Download: Pocket Guide to North Africa

Jungle Yachts, 1938

On: By: Romeyn

Attilio Gatti, an Italian, World War I army officer, author, film-maker and explorer first set out to explore Africa in 1924. By the time he set out for his “final expedition” in 1938 he had already led 9 previous expeditions, one of those resulting in the 1927 film Siliva the Zulu. It was because of these films, plus his adventure writings in magazines like the Saturday Evening Post that he was able to obtain financing to further his travels. Exploits if his 10th expedition were later published in 1945 as South of the Sahara. Continue reading “Jungle Yachts, 1938” →

Pocket Guide to West Africa, 1943

On: By: Romeyn

In West Africa you will be playing an important role in the world-wide strategy to smash Hitler and the Axis. On Africa’s West Coast you will be guarding vital supply lines to North Africa, Egypt, India, Russia, and even China. From this region must come much needed strategic materials for our own war machine and for all of the United Nations. The Nazis had been waiting for the chance to execute their elaborate plans for the exploitation of Africa’s vast resources and labor supply. Your presence in West Africa means that these plans have been put on ice. Thus you are striking a hard blow at Hitler, and at Hirohito, too.

Digitized by Central University Libraries, Southern Methodist University

Prepared by Special service division, Army service forces, United States Army.

Download: Pocket Guide to West Africa

African Pterodactyls?

On: By: Romeyn

M.D.W. Jeffreys, M.A., Ph.D.

In September, 1939, the West African Review contained an article “Living Monster or Fabulous.Animal?” Readers will recollect that some years earlier there had been a type of “Challenger Expedition” into Central Africa to search the Iruwuni forests of the Belgian Congo for a huge, mysterious, antedeluvian monster. “Is the Brontosauros still alive in the morasses of the Congo?” were the headlines in some of the London papers. No report of the traces of any such monsters ever appeared, and I was not surprised. I had been right through the Belgian Congo in 1923, and had come into intimate contact with a number of what would be called Native Commissioners or District Officers in British territory, as well as with noted big-game hunters. None of these men, who were in positions to know before anyone else of the existence of such monsters, ever alluded to the possible existence of them. Yet stories do circulate among natives of animals never listed in any Museum. Continue reading “African Pterodactyls?” →