ARMY MAY GUARD DAMS NEAR JAPS

LOS ANGELES, June 17.--(AP)--A congressional committee, investigating conditions in Japanese relocation centers conferred today with an Army representative on measures for adequate protection of dams, reservoirs and other strategic installations in the vicinity of the camps.

The Dies subcommittee yesterday heard a former employe of the Heart Mountain relocation center, Wyoming, testify that large stocks of food had been hoarded there, some of which he said he believed had been traded by the Japanese for whiskey.

Earl A. Best, a wounded veteran of Dunkerque, who said his son, Clifford, was killed in Africa last January, told the committee yesterday he was sent to Heart Mountain last December as an associate steward after having served for a time as chief steward at the Poston, Ariz. relocation center.

During a month-long inventory of food at the Heart Mountain camp, Best said, he found 36 of the center's 42 kitchens had supplies hidden in their attics.

At one time while I was there, there were 10,000 gallons of mayonnaise, when they were using only 600 gallons a month." Best testified.

Expressing the belief that "it was a case of their wanting to steal it and trade it for whiskey and other things," Best declared he had heard from Japanese at the camp that a chef was trading hams for whiskey with Japanese soldiers from the United States Army who visited the camp on furlough.

Best said the garbage collector was selling chickens to the Japanese and that many of the kitchens had as much as 200 to 300 pounds of chickens on hand. No money was ever seen to change hands in such transactions, Best added.