When Guadalcanal was taken, Tom Baker’s son--19-year-old Pvt. 1st Cl. Thomas Wesley Baker--raced up the beach in the first invading wave of Marines. I talked with him when he came home--an invalid, with jungle malaria in his system. His Guadalcanal experience had cost him 40 pounds. It was 3 o’clock in the morning when the Japs advanced up the beach. Wes Baker was taut and scared, because this was to be his first experience in actual combat.... “We saw them first. They came in columns of four. The highest ranking officers were right out in front. Later, we found that none of the Japs was less than corporal and in their clothing was a lot of American and English money. They were picked troops and the biggest Japs I ever saw, all of them close to six feet tall. They came through a little lagoon, waist high in water. There wasn’t any barbed wire up, so they kept coming on. They were no more than 200 yards away when we opened fire. There were 1500 of them and they were all killed. We lost 29 and 80 were wounded. We’d charge and they’d go into the water, trying to swim out of range. We picked them off like ducks. When their officers were killed, they didn’t know what they were doing.” HOME FRONT CHARM More advanced in years than mail carrier Tom Baker are Miss Saidee M. Swift and her sister, Mrs. Caroline Burr, of the Home Front. They are in the candy-making business. A large and pleasant old house stands at the bend of the road just as you enter upon the beautiful vista of great elms in Yarmouthport. A weather-worn sign--Saidee Swift’s Candies--is on a tree out in front. For 20 years Saidee Swift has turned out fine candies and travellers from all parts of the nation have knocked at her door. Her chocolates have gone to China. Governor Saltonstall is one of her best customers. Her trade has included judges, society folk, artists, writers and countless prominent individuals who have visited the Cape. Each Christmas she makes about 200 pounds of candy for faithful customers in distant parts. Saidee Swift’s technique includes a close watch on the weather and sometimes she waits four or five days for just the right temperature. She says, “In a northeast storm, I can dip splendidly.” Whaling captains lived in the great houses facing the Yarmouthport elms. In 1691, Ichabod Paddock was engaged to go to Nantucket to instruct men “in the art of killing whales by the employment of boats from the shore.” Not far from Saidee Swift’s is the former domicile of Asa Eldredge, commander of the famous clipper Red Jacket, who made a record voyage from New York to Liverpool in 13 days. Regular packet service to Boston contributed to the naming of Yarmouthport. There is still an old timer or two who can recall the fierce competition between the Yarmouthport and Barnstable sailing packets and the frequent races to Boston. WOMEN MOULDED BULLETS