Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), Wednesday 28 October 1942, page 8


ROOSEVELT

TOUR

"Information for

Husband"

OUR STAFF CORRESPONDENT,

BETTY WILSON.

LONDON, Oct. 27.-"I thought I would like to see what is hap-pening in England with my own eyes and bring back to my hus-band some information he would

like to have been able to obtain himself."

This was how Mrs. Eleanor Roose-velt explained the purpose of her visit to Britain and her determination to carry on her programme under any conditions.

Her visit to some of the women's Services yesterday was no official tour conducted from the comfort of her car. She unfurled an umbrella over her gay red hat, and slung an officer's mackintosh over her shoulders, and set off between A.T.S. ranks on foot. Her car followed-empty.

She ate the same lunch as the girls, and remembered to say a special good-bye to the girl despatch riders who had preceded her car, before dashing off to keep a 6 p.m. appointment at the American Nurses' Club in London.

It was the end of another of Mrs. Roosevelt's "My Days."

Twenty-seven-year-old Lettice Cur-tis, who is the first woman to fly a four-engined bomber in the ferry ser-vice, met Mrs. Roosevelt at the A.T.A. headquarters.

Miss Curtis, who is a Devonian, was chosen out of 200 women from New Zealand. South Africa, Canada, the U.S.A., Britain, Poland, and Czecho-slovakia.

Already she has flown 90 different types of aircraft. She flew a Halifax bomber solo for the first time this week.

She had a B class licence two years before the war, and captained women's tennis and fencing at Oxford.

She told Mrs. Roosevelt: "I was not specially thrilled, because we all shall be ferrying four-engined bombers

soon."

WITH A.T.S. GIRLS

Mrs. Roosevelt heard her first London air raid warning yesterday, when two sounded in close succession while she was at an A.T.S. training centre in Surrey.

Another warning occurred while she was addressing the girls, but she went on, telling the girls that she thought that their work and training were not only helping to win the war now but also laying the foundation for a better world.

Mrs. Roosevelt telescoped a twodays' programme into one. She saw girls listening to lectures, giving out stores, and at physical training, and she also inspected the dining hall, canteens, and living quarters.

Mrs. Churchill, the wife of the Prime Minister, kept in the background as she followed Mrs. Roosevelt on her strenuous tour yesterday.