Gracias Amigos (1944)

[Music] [Music] e friends we are going to take a look at some old news reels they may be a little scratched and worn but they still tell a story for it so happens that they tell the story of a people who lived on an Island an island called the United States of America it was a big island and a rich Island here were the world's tallest buildings here were the world's longest bridges here were the most telephones and the most radios the biggest irrigation dams and hydroelectric projects here were great industries that paid the world's highest wages here in abundance were Iron Coal copper Timber Limestone and petroleum all it seems all of the great basic natural resources and in addition here the Farms produced more wheat more fruit Beef Pork mutton milk butter eggs and cheese than the people could eat in other words this island had everything including the security of a broad ocean on either [Music] side yes what if Germany should attack Poland and overrun Norway Denmark Holland and France Italy might invade Ethiopia and Greece Japan might invade China nobody could invade this great Island and besides why should they why should anybody attack us no nobody would attack us that's what we thought well folks I don't think any of us need be reminded of Pearl Harbor we had the industries we had the resources and besides that we were good and sore we'd arm ourselves and we'd still meet our lend leas commitments that is we would if if Russia could hold the Germans in the Caucasus and England held them in Egypt the Japs and Germans had to be kept from meeting in India cutting off Russia and strangling China because if this happened Well we'd soon see an invasion of this hemisphere that was plain to everybody we'd been asleep and while we'd been asleep our enemies had planned long and well from embassies and consulates in all the the Americas they had gathered more information on the Western Hemisphere than we had ourselves in Latin America hundreds of German embassies consulates and businesses had done everything within their power to make friends for Hitler and to broadcast suspicion and antagonism toward the United States the same could be said of hundreds of German social and athletic clubs exactly as they had up here all over Latin America they had organized trained and in many instances complet completely notified whole communities of largely German extraction a riot here a disturbance there confusion panic and the fifth column takes over divide and conquer here as in Europe German commercial airlines manned by Reserve officers in Garing Lu wafa had Landing Fields all the way up to the Caribbean each a potential bomber base within easy range of our Texas and California oils Fields our airplane plants in Los Angeles and San Diego our shipyards on the gulf our industrial cities in the Deep South and especially the Panama Canal here at home we'd had another root Awakening we had the industry true enough we had the coal and iron but you can't make steel without manganes and the Japs had taken our manganes when they took the Philippines likewise our hemp with the melee States they' taken our source of 10 with British meaya and the Dutch East Indies they taken our source of [Music] rubber no rubber no airplane tires no tires for mobile artillery for trucks and jeeps no rubber for Life RS no rubber for gas masks yes it was as bad as that synthetic rubber we could begin to make sure and we did as fast as we could but without the addition of a certain amount of live natural rubber a fire for example just wouldn't stand up with power from TVA we'd been making more than enough nitrates for peacetime requirements but suddenly this was only a drop in the bucket with the surrender of the Philippines we also found we could not fight a war in the East without quinine specific for malaria true enough quinine had come from this hemisphere even now in Guatemala Costa Rica Ecuador Colombia and Peru there were scattered chin cona planting trees whose B would give us quinine but these were not our trees they belong to our neighbors the same was true of natural rubber originally it came from the Amazon the trees were still there a, miles up the river but they had to be tapped by somebody somebody had to collect the sap coagulate it patiently a thin layer at a time over a low Smokey fire somebody had to transport it to the river bank we needed rubber needed everyone one of these balls bouncing into the river on the first step in their journey to us and we needed somebody to get the rubber out we knew they had tin in Bolivia but again somebody had to get it out and the same could be said of copper in Chile somebody had to get that out Chile could help us with nitrates for fertilizer and explosives we needed all they had all we could get but somebody had to get it out in Mexico and Cuba were extensive manganes deposits and for our new walkie-talkies and radio communication systems Brazil could Supply quartz crystal there are no substitutes incidentally for quartz crystal no quartz no radios but again somebody had to get it out and even more important they had to want to sell it to us not to somebody else Latin America could Supply us with the industrial diamonds vital to our Precision Machinery Latin America could send us BSA essential in the construction of lightweight mosquito bombers and gliders they could send us mahogany for PT boats oils for sprays and paints they could send us any number of things we had to have but they had to want to send them and that was that Mexico had to want to keep sending us white Arsenic and Brazil rot too for without sprays there'd be no more fruit crops no more bumper crops of corn and wheat in fact without certain Latin American insect decides we'd soon be faced with a serious menace to Public Health we had lost our hemp but here in Mexico and Central America and Haiti grew Cel and Henkin here were the moing lines for our ships our cargo slings and Landing Nets but somebody had to harvest it and process it somebody had to get it out and want to get it [Music] out yes we were the people who lived on the island that had everything but we learned that we were not so self-sufficient as we thought well folks we got our rubber not all we could have used but enough we got our tin and our quinine and what is most important we got it in a hurry it cost a lot of effort and a lot of money some people I understand have even said that it cost too much but what I'd like to do is well here's one of our flying Cadets coming in from his first solo watch those tires folks I'd like to ask him what he thinks a little natural rubber is worth or the pilot of this fighter landing on a carrier deck I'd like to ask these boys shaking with malaria in the Pacific what they think we ought to have FID for qu and going back to this meeting in Ria de Janeiro in 1942 I'd I'd like to ask what the vote of confidence of these foreign ministers meant to us at that critical moment for here we learned that what our Latin American neighbors had we could have what we were fighting for we would all fight for and this is something we must not [Music] forget and now let us hear of the military contributions of our neighbors from the commander of the army transport command Major General Harold L George for reasons of security many of the contributions of our friends and Neighbors in Mexico Central America the Caribbean and South America cannot be revealed until after the war but from a military point of view in terms of Manpower the friendly cooperation of the other American republics has equaled the addition to our armed forces of at least several divisions by Swift mobilization these good neighbors to the South nullified years of access scheming in this Hemisphere and today thanks to their cooperation our Southern flank is secure against Invasion besides delivering to us thousands and thousands of tons of critically needed raw materials many Latin American republics have set up valuable Coastal defenses others have made important air and Naval defense bases available to us and still others have provided us with sites for air bases from which today a steady procession of bombers and transports are taking off for the battlefronts of the world also by way of these same bases our casualties are being flown home for treatment and rest up and down shipping lanes operating in conjunction with our own Naval and Air Forces sea and air patrols of Brazil and Mexico and the Caribbean Americas have hunted down enemy submarines in line of duty Latin American seamen have gone down gallantly in Latin American ship ships in weighing the value of the Latin America to the whole war effort I think we can even say that without the other Americas North Africa might be in enemy hands this if you remember was the situation between raml on the outskirts of Alexandria and his objective the Suz Canal were the British under Montgomery virtually cut off from supplies and replac B ments by sea as well as by land in no condition certainly to launch an offensive here in the United States however half a world away war production had just begun to hit its stride but of what good were our tanks jeeps and anti-aircraft guns to Montgomery what good were these millions of shells and these bombers and Fighters if we couldn't get them to Cairo but we had an idea planes could fly the Caribbean they could also fly by the Atlantic and as a hub for this operation Brazil had granted us an air base at natal nearly everything you see incidentally runways hangers repair shops warehouses Administration buildings quarters for offices and enlisted personnel all this could not have been built without the aid of Brazilian materials and labor no more than could we have built a whole system of Landing Fields across the continent of Africa without first having had our base at Nel for here every tool every item of equipment even the runway surfaces had to be flown in but the landing Fields were built now with Nel as a hub we opened our trans Caribbean transatlantic shuttle to Cairo flying by day and by night sometimes direct from the factory the largest assortment and volume of military cargo ever to be carried by air we flew jeeps and small field pieces airplanes Motors and spare propellers we flew special ammunition even Drums of 100 octane gasoline we flew spare tires and repair pots medical supplies emergency rations and bedding and then with the caros we often crammed technicians and Specialists for along with our equipment had to go our own maintenance Crews and Personnel in conceiving his global war Hitler had overlooked just one point with an Airbase on the Bulge of Brazil we could fly the Atlantic just as readily from west to east as he would have been able to do from east to west here in Cairo and Alexandria you see being delivered to our allies the first trickle of material that swelled into a brimming stream to the Biga British this added equipment meant being able to turn from defensive to offensive action it meant security for the Suz canal but to the Allied Nations to humanity it meant even more than this it meant hope a first hope but a bright hope for in the making was the complete route of Ramel and victory in the Battle of L Alan military experts have often referred to the Battle of L alamain as a turning point of the war it was the first step toward making the invasion of North Africa possible and a step before Italy and Europe could be invaded in that battle and soon afterward in the invasion of North Africa and Italy Superior Equipment and plenty of it just as much as the high courage and determination of these fighting men made possible this first crushing blow to the axis partners and their dream to rule the world but there would have been no Superior Equipment here let's not forget that if it had not been for yes met child but we can go back even farther than that as far back as the nameless labor recruit on his way to some rubber Camp 2,000 Mi up the amazon we can go back to the anonomous Brazilian quartz Miner the Bolivian tin Miner the Chilean nitrate worker we can go all the way back to this man peeling chin cona bar and 120 million other good neighbors to the South who in our most critical hour came to our aid for they too fought in the Battle of el alamain and in the invasion of North Africa just as they have been fighting at our side in Italy in the South Pacific and in Europe and will continue to fight at our side on land on the sea and in the air wherever axis forces can be met and destroyed raw materials can be bought yes but good friends never therefore to our Latin American friends we say in your words russas Amigos in our language that spanks a million we won't [Music] [Applause] forget