Special Delivery Sand

From Long Beach, Ascension Island, South Atlantic Ocean.

Today, I got a surprise package from a woman I know--but whom I've never met. She and I have emailed one another quite a bit since my father died.

She was stationed on Ascension Island serving with the USAF when Dad died--and with me here and she on Ascension, she helped me arrange to donate my father's World War II Ascension Island papers to the Island Heritage Society.

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When The Engineers Started Rockin' on Ascension Island

The "Wideawakes" of Ascension Island, photo from about 1943.

It has been seventy years ago this year that the 38th Engineers landed on Ascension Island, tasked with building a secret air base in just 90 days. They didn't have enough water. They weren't resupplied nor did they get mail for months. They worked around the clock in two twelve-hour shifts until some of them dropped from exhaustion.

And they made their deadline and helped the Allies win the war. My father talked about his assignment there a lot at the end of his life. But he never mentioned the dance band!

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Stamp to Honor Wideawake Field's 70th Anniversary

My father, Colonel William Ashley Chapman, on Ascension Island in the 1980s.

II've just had the nicest email from a fellow called Tim Underwood, who works for the company that produces the stamps for the Ascension Island Post Office--famous among philatelists around the world. 

Mr. Underwood let me know that Ascension Island will be honoring the 70th Anniversary of Wideawake Field with a new stamp cover and is at present awaiting Her Majesty's approval of the design. Now that is a wonderful thing.

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Ah, The Feel of Castile With Salt

(From my father's papers about his work as an Army engineer in the first half of World War II, now in the archives of the Ascension Island Heritage Society. )

Air crews flying through Ascension Island during World War II got special treatment: they got to use a little distilled water for washing up. Photo courtesy US Army Air Corps. 1943

by William Ashley Chapman

Living conditions for the base personnel and the air crews passing through were primitive. For the base personnel--two years in a flapping tent was a memorable experience.

Our desalination plant produced a limited supply of fresh water; enough for drinking, cooking, laundry, and vehicle radiators, but never enough for bathing.

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Ascension Archives

A very kind volunteer at the Ascension Island Heritage Society has now catalogued the two boxes of papers I sent her after my father's death. The boxes contained my father's letters, papers, lists of military men he served with, and drafts of articles about this strange island where he was stationed for two years during World War II.

I was thrilled to see that this part of the work was completed.  It means researchers in the years ahead will have a new resource about the part America played in the history of this British Overseas Territory.  And there is a bonus.

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"The Snake is Smoking": Unique World War II Slang

When I found paintings of Recife, Brazil, where my father went on leave from Ascension in 1942, in the  April 30, 1945 "Life's War Artists" edition of Life Magazine, I also learned a bit of historic Brazilian World War II slang.

Brazil was neutral until 1942. Up to that point, Brazil's president, Getulio Vargas, said "snakes would smoke" before Brazil got into the war.

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Brazil and Ascension Island

A satirical painting of wartime Recife, Brazil through the eyes of American artist Reginald Marsh. Marsh was part of the  World War II artists program. This is from the April 30, 1945 issue of Life Magazine.

I've discovered a writer in Brazil who is working on a book about the part his country and his native state Natal played in the Allied victory in World War II.  There is a real connection between Ascension Island and Brazil. That's why he contacted me.

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