Thanksgiving Day For Men Of U.S. Expedition

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28446, 28 November 1957, Page 7

Thanksgiving Day For Men Of U.S. Expedition

Thanksgiving Day today will be celebrated in the traditional fashion with turkey dinners and all the accustomed trimmings of cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie by members of the United States Navy and Air Force in New Zealand, in ships sailing between New Zealand and the Antarctic, and in Antarctica itself.

For Thanksgiving Day, a national holiday which is almost as important to Americans as Christmas, every endeavour is made to return to one’s family for the Thanksgiving dinner, but for the men engaged with the United States Antarctic expedition this is an impossibility. Nevertheless, in the widely-separated bases and in the ships of the expedition no effort will be spared to make the day one of celebration and fesTwo hundred and fifty officers and men at the United States Air Force camo at Weedons, for instance. will sit down today for a Thanksgiving dinner lasting from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m., having the afternoon off duty after working in the morning. They will dine on 41 turkeys (total weight 3741 b). and baked ham. savoured with several dozen pints of cranberry sauce, and for dessert, numerous mincemeat- and pumpkin pi£s. The permanent staff of the United States Navy in Christ-

church was arranged with a city hotel to have a buffet dinner. Naturally, their menu will consist of the traditional dishes. Scientists

There are ‘only seven men in the party of American civilian scientists in Christchurch at the moment. Their numbers are too few, they say, for celebrations on a large scale. “We’d like turkey, but will probably end up by having roast lamb instead,” said a party member. Thanksgiving Day for Americans is a national holiday, held on the fourth Thursday in November, commemorating the service and feast held by the Pilgrim Fathers on the occasion of their first harvest in 1621. after landing in America from the Mayflower in 1620.

Tradition has it that they feasted on wild turkeys found in the forests, and hence the prominence of turkey in the Thanksgiving Day menu.

Miners Buried.— Eighteen Japanese coal miners were believed dead after they were buried in a pit at a coal mine in Yawata, in southern Japan today. Twentyfive miners were working when water suddenly flooded into the pit and the walls collapsed. Seven narrowly escaped.—Tokyo, November 26.