<Begin Segment 30>

RP: One other story that Robert shared with us was about a bomber, I think it was a B-24 Liberator that had to make a forced landing at the Manzanar airport. And he was sent out with several other guys to guard the plane. Do you, do you remember that?

RD: I remember something about that, I think we were on guard duty, and they landed at that airfield there. And, 'cause they had that, I forget what they called it, bomb site on there, for the bombardiers and stuff, and it had to be guarded. Norton bomb site, yeah. And I'm sure I stood duty down there, I kind of remember something about that now, yeah. I forgot how long it was there, but remember we had to do some duties, go down, stayed guard duty down there.

RP: Yeah, he was, he was telling us that, you know, he went by the book in terms of not allowing even the lieutenant near the plane without seeing ID.

RD: Oh, yeah, to challenge anybody that come up here, yeah. He had to be recognized, you know, and they had a password, and if they didn't know the password, you shoot 'em. No. [Laughs] No, they didn't get in. They always had a password and everything else, and he challenged everybody. I don't remember whether I had to challenge anybody or not. Don't seem like it that I can recall.

RP: Did you have to guard anybody at the jail at the military police camp?

RD: No.

RP: Anybody, again, anybody who was too drunk or insubordinate or anything like that?

RD: That I had to guard?

RP: Yeah.

RD: No.

RP: No?

RD: All we'd do is restricted to our barracks on our own, like I said, at nighttime, we could sneak out.

RP: Like being grounded by your parents?

RD: Yeah, there was nobody guarding us or anything else, we all kind of stuck together. The CQ would always check us in and out. You had to be on duty on the guard, at the gate in the morning, checking guys going out or coming in or whatever.

RP: You mentioned, you mentioned the mess hall, maybe refresh my memory. Did we talk about the food at all? Do you remember anything about your meals there? How were you fed?

RD: What the, I was trying to remember what we called, called that one meal, Spam, or what it was, but what do you call it? Oh, I can't remember, we had a name for it.

RP: SOS?

RD: Yeah. SOS, yeah, that's what it was. Most of the time the meals weren't that bad, and especially if you were on KP duty. And they served steaks once in a while. But that Spam, that crap they put on toast and everything in the morning, that wasn't very good.

RP: How were you served in the mess hall? Was it a cafeteria operation where you picked up a plate and you moved along?

RD: Went through the line, yeah.

RP: Plop, plop, plop?

RD: Somebody served, yeah, as far as I can remember. But nobody served you on the table or anything. You had to go get your own food. As I can remember, in, it was in Arizona, the winds would come up there so bad you have to, all the time your food would taste sandy and the water, add Kool-Aid quite a bit, it tastes kind of sandy, there's no way to keep the sand out of there. It always had that sandy taste to everything.

<End Segment 30> - Copyright © 2009 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.