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AP PHOTOS: Editor selections from the past week in Asia

<p>Seventy-five years ago a great drama was being played out in the Wyoming Valley, no less than in the rest of America.</p><p>With the Axis powers of Nazi Germany and imperialist Japan terrorizing Europe and the Pacific, the government had asked the public to buy more bonds to help fund the war effort.</p><p>So it was that some 500 community leaders packed the Victory Ballroom of the Hotel Redington on Wilkes-Barre&#8217;s East Market Street for a breakfast meeting to spur sales, flagging recently.</p><p>To sweeten the deal, the locals would also be able to meet actress Gloria Stuart, one of many Hollywood celebrities touring the country as bond spokesmen.</p><p>Prominently seated at the head table was Wilkes-Barre Mayor Charles N. Loveland. He was joined by Luzerne County Commissioner Herman Kersteen, chaplain of the U.S. House of Representatives Rev. James S. Montgomery and president of the Wyoming Valley Merchants Association Frank Burnside, among many others.</p><p>Looking back from our time, three-quarters of a century later, it is difficult to grasp the way World War II dominated Wyoming Valley, no less than it was dominating the rest of the world.</p><p>Thousands of the region&#8217;s young men and women had joined the armed forces over the past year, with numbers spiking after the Dec. 7, 1941 Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor. Casualty lists were mounting. Local plants making war materials of all kinds were working overtime, and the rationing of vital commodities from sugar to tires had kicked in.</p><p>Fears of enemy air raids were especially strong. From time to time the public was ordered to douse all lights, practicing in case bombers appeared in the skies. The Times Leader led a drive to buy a station wagon to transport volunteers daily to and from a plane spotter tower at Blakeslee.</p><p>Civilians were asked to do something else: buy war bonds, as many as they could afford.</p><p>It wasn&#8217;t only the glitterati who were at the breakfast, though. Backers of the bond drive had brought in soldiers and sailors to put a human face on the war effort. One of them, Lt. Bartholomew Passananto, who had evaded capture in the Philippines, reminded the crowd that his fellow troops &#8220;are fighting for their homes, for you.&#8221;</p><p>Con McCole, soon to be elected mayor, got up to introduce the guest of honor.</p><p>Today we know Gloria Stuart as the elderly &#8220;Rose&#8221; from the 1997 epic &#8220;Titanic,&#8221; the story of the famous maritime disaster. In 1942, however, she was an instantly recognizable co-star of popular films like &#8220;The Invisible Man&#8221; and &#8220;It Could Happen to You,&#8221; acting opposite famed leading men Claude Rains and James Cagney.</p><p>Stuart gave a rousing talk, portraying the enemy as having an edge in military hardware.</p><p>&#8220;It is up to us, here at this breakfast, and all over America, to do our share in surpassing the production of weapons of war, of which Japan and Germany have great stockpile,&#8221; she told the crowd.</p><p>At tables in the hotel and later on Public Square, she raised $542,000 in bond sales. Adjusted for today&#8217;s prices, the total would be in the millions.</p><p>Stuart wasn&#8217;t the only bond-selling celebrity to visit in that dark year. Comedians Abbot and Costello and actress Irene Dunne made appearances soon after, and the parade of the famous didn&#8217;t end with them.</p><p>But she did spur an outpouring of patriotism, bringing steely resolve amid death and destruction. Seventy-five years ago, that was a truly great role to play.</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Remember When </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/web1_TOM_MOONEY-2.jpg</photo0><caption0>Remember When </caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>Tom Mooney</p><p>Remember When</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Tom Mooney is a Times Leader history columnist. Reach him at tommooney42@gmail.com.</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Remember When: Celebrities in politics, even in the 1940s