Argosy (UK), January 1955 — page 31: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

29 NORTH OF MIDNIGHT by TOM HOPKINSON HE moment the war ended, everybody had only one idea— to get themselves somewhere else. ‘Those who were abroad wanted to come back home. Many who’d been kept at home were just as eager to be abroad. After six years building airfields up and down Britain, John Garrod jumped at the first chance that came his way. It was an unusual chance, and its consequences were odder still. Not many people remember it today, but around September 1944, the Finns—who’d been fighting side by side with the Germans against the Russians—made peace with the Russians and invited the Germans to go quietly. The Germans played hell, particularly in the far north, up in the province of Lapland. Farms, houses, churches, schools—everything was destroyed. However, the last German had not yet been driven out before the people were beginning to filter back, to salvage what they could, and to clear the land for ploughing. Rebuilding could wait. Garrod’s firm, constructional engineers in a big way, secured a contract to replace three steel bridges in and around the capital of the province, Rovaniemi, and Garrod, after a tussle with some of his colleagues, got himself sent out to survey the site in greater detail. comicloooks.comnn)