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A Citizen Soldier in the Air.New Guinea Hilton - not!Living conditions in New Guinea were poor by air base standards (though probably better than conditions for many foot soldiers). Charlie says,"The humidity was terrible - nothing ever got dry there, your clothes were always damp."They lived in tents, and their camp was on a steep slope that was subject to mudslides. Charlie did a little simple engineering, digging drainage ditches around their tent, and when the torrential afternoon downpours came, many other tents slid down the hill, while Charlie’s remained in place. They used crates and metal barrels to build makeshift showers - always a hot shower in that climate! Food was not bad, Charlie recalls - considering the circumstances, the cooks did OK. There was a regular supply ship, but one month it was sunk by the Japanese. They had rice and cans of WW1 era 'bully beef' - but when they opened the cans, they were nothing but maggots. "We had something red, it might have been catsup - so we had catsup and rice for 17 days. That’s when we took up hunting." Near the camp was a stream where they had heard and seen small wild boars. They rigged up flashlights and Springfield rifles and ambushed the boars one night - they shot maybe two or three of them, and they got some good meals once the cooks figured out how to get rid of the bristles. |
Camp fauna also included some very persistent ants - they would climb up the tent ropes and drop down on the cots through holes in the mosquito netting. "You would wake up with all these ants biting you - one guy threw kerosene on his cot to try to kill them, got overexcited and lit it with a match - no injuries, but he burned up his cot!"
READ ON
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The contents of this website are copyright © 1998 - 2007 by MiGMan |
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