These are some highlights from the News Journal on June 18, 1943:
National headlines
• ‘Naples Blasted By Allied Warplanes; Night Raiders Of RAF Pound Occupied Land’
“(AP) — Italy’s bomb-scarred port of Naples, two Sicilian airdromes and enemy shipping off Greece came under the flail of Allied warplanes in the latest assaults in the Mediterranean, it was announced today, as the Axis stressed new invasion preparations against southern Europe.
Locally
• In news of local servicemen: Grogan Bailey finished his “boot” training at Great Lakes Naval training Station; Pfc. Harold Pobst Jr. completed basic training in the anti-aircraft unit at Camp Callan, Ca. and is now enrolled in a three-month course in radio in Los Angeles; and, Pvt. George Craig returned to Camp Van Dorn, Miss. after a 10-day furlough spent with his mother, Mrs. Lon Craig.
• Wilmington High School coach George Houck “was employed to take charge of the recreation program in Wilmington, which already has been started under the direction of the Clinton County Council of Church Women, at a meeting of the City Recreation Board.”
• “Frank Setty of Blanchester returned Thursday with the S.B. Craig & Co. panel truck which was stolen from Blanchester Saturday night and abandoned in Mansfield.
• Local deaths included: Mrs. Mary Swindler, whose services were held at Arthur Funeral Home with burial at New Burlington Cemetery; and Mrs. Edna Blackburn of Xenia, who was born in Westboro.
• Showing at the Murphy Theatre was Barbara Stanwyck in “Lady of Burlesque”; at the Lamax Theatre — “Those Super-Sleuths Go Saddle-Silly In A Horsey and Buggy Daze” with Abbott & Costello in “It Ain’t Hay.”