he weighed 104 pounds. During his trip to the United States on a hospital ship, he was fed seven times a day, and he now proudly tells of gaining back 70 pounds. U.S. forces completed their conquest of Iwo Jima on March 26. On April Fools’ Day, they would invade Okinawa to use it as a springboard for the planned invasion of the Japanese home islands. In Europe, Allied forces were racing across Germany and Soviet forces soon would set out from the Oder River, 60 miles from Berlin. Daily Bulletin | March 24, 1945 Spring and summer breezes will find a large American flag to flutter on the Union Pacific
station platform before the North Platte Canteen. P.R. Halligan Post No. 163 of the American Legion yesterday presented the Canteen with the flag to be displayed on the platform. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s interest in the Canteen had been proved long before. Now it was his wife’s turn to personally take note of North Platte’s accomplishment. “Prowler,” Daily Bulletin | March 31, 1945 The First Lady of the land, Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt, joined the ever-growing list of boosters for the North Platte Canteen when Mrs. Charles [Jessie] Hutchens, secretary for the general committee, received a personal note from the president’s wife complimenting the Canteen on their splendid performance. But Eleanor’s husband would not live to see victo- ry. Franklin Delano Roosevelt died from a massive cerebral hemorrhage at Warm Springs, Georgia, at 2:35 p.m. North Platte time on April 12, after the completion of The Telegraph’s regular after- noon issue. By the paper’s dating convention of that time, that issue was dated April 13. No microfilm copies survive of the two April 12 Telegraph special editions mentioned below, the means by which Canteen visitors learned of FDR’s death. The Daily Bulletin front page above ran on the 13th.
The North Platte Telegraph
Telegraph | April 14, 1945 By Margaret Brown
Several hours passed before the shock, written on the faces and felt in the hearts of all people, began to turn to realization that the Chief of the Army and Navy, the President of the United States, was dead. Persons sitting at restaurant counters and bars sat in stunned silence, staring at their hands, as they listened to the first radio reports of the Continued on page 94
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