Melvin Lewis, Salt Lake City, Utah: an interview by Becky B. Lloyd, July 16, 2001: Saving the legacy tape no. 402 and 403

Page 59

M LLEWI .J y 1 , 20 1 MEL: We had what they called a honey barge. hat wa a b t that th took the garbage on, took it out to sea a ways and dumped it. But it g t t wh r ther was nothing for the honey barge to do because the garbage cans were always n1pty. of course, the consensus was that the hold-outs were coming down and getting th fl d, because we knew it wasn't the POWs-they were fed well. Besides that, they were locked up at nighttime. So we got on this idea about taking care of some of these people. And over at the quartermasters corps they had tons and tons ofK-rations and C-rations that were just going to be thrown away. And they set that aside for another purpose. We were down to about seventy percent squadron strength, but we started to draw rations, regular rations, for a full squadron. So, we took all of this extra food we had and put it out on the edge of the trees, out behind the mess hall, and the C-rations were probably the best because they had canned vegetables, little canned fruits, canned meat and a couple of cigarettes and little Sterno stove and a few things like that. And we also had tons and tons of cases of 3.2 beer (laughs). So we set that out. Well, in the morning it would all be gone. Every bit of it. So it was the hold-outs that were coming down and picking up this stuff. And that was pretty gratifying, you know. BBL: Yeah. MEL: So, after a while, I was finally appointed the squadron corrunander. So I'd just unlock the compound gates, day and night, and let the prisoners roam at will. And they were good, you know. We just told them to never go near the airplanes but they were free to roam the area all they wanted, which they did, and they kept the area just spic and span. Picked up every little thing that looked like a piece of dirt and they were always so polite and always did their level best to please you in things like that. So, you 56