Here was a tragedy. Our family talked about it for days.

"Where does most of our sugar come from?" my young son asked.

"From Cuba. This year Cuba will send to this country more than 30 pounds of sugar for every man, woman, and child."

"Cuba is really our sugar bowl then," he said.

Friends who had visited the "Pearl of the Antilles" extolled its many virtues besides sugar. When vacation time rolled around, I decided to see the island for myself.

After lunch in Miami, Florida, I boarded a Pan American Clipper for Havana (Habana). The flight was memorable, across the southern tip of Florida and shoal-studded Florida Bay.

Far below, I saw tiny mites crawling along a thin white string. They were automobiles speeding along the Overseas Highway which spans the sea on stilts to Key West. Soon cars will board a ferry at Key West, I mused, and six hours later roll off at Havana.

GATCO (Gulf Atlantic Transportation Company) is converting a landing ship to make this car ferry. A remodeled LSD, which repaired our amphibious craft in the Pacific war, will whisk 230 cars 100 miles across the Straits of Florida to Cuba.

Passing over Key West, our Clipper climbed above huge white clouds and headed south over the sapphire Gulf Stream.

In a few moments we picked up the rugged north coast of Cuba and then flew over the bottleneck entrance to Havana. Morro Castle crowned one side and the Malecon, Havana's Riverside Drive, bordered the other. Ships and docks crowded this important port, haven of vessels for 438 years. We passed directly over the colorful city, with its red-tiled roofs, green plazas, and the huge domed Capitol marking its heart.

This big island of Cuba; with its Spanish speech and Old World atmosphere, lies only an hour and a half by air from Miami.

Columbus used all his superlatives to extol the virtues of Cuba. "A thousand tongues could not adequately relate its loveliness," he wrote after the island's discovery, October 27, 1492, on his first voyage.

Although my son and many others think of Cuba as a sugar bowl, to smokers it is the world's cigar box. Havana leaf for making cigars is considered tops.

The island also is a huge repository of iron, manganese, copper, tungsten, and other vital ores. During the war Cuba sent many shiploads of precious nickel to toughen the steel our armament plants used.

Cuba ranks fourth among the nations of the world in iron ore reserves. When our deposits run out, we may be glad that this vast source of iron ore lies at our doorstep.

My travels in Cuba began with the drive into town along the Malecon. This wide, curving boulevard borders the rocky coast…"