Page:My 1102 days of wwii.djvu/22

 1 1/2 inch line - allowing the load to swing out over the water, ahead and beyond the barge. No one volunteered to crawl out on the boom to attach a line, but someone came up with the idea of lassoing it. This soon relieved us of this predicament.

The heaviest piece of equipment we unloaded was a 60 ton floating target, used for Naval gun practice.

During the push a few of the enemy broke through the lines into our territory, hiding out during the day and coming out at night to find something to eat in our mess halls. Several were captured or killed. One of our men - a cook - was killed with a knife as he went into the mess hall early one morning. If for any reason we left the camp other than work (and sometimes then), we had better have the M1 with us. When we went to bed that rifle and my knife were ready and within reach. The latter was an eleven inch bowie knife that my brother Roy had made for me. Guard duty was one job I did not especially care for but all of us took our turn at it. At night we always had 6 or 8 guards placed around the camp at equal intervals. As corporal of the guards, it was my duty to make a round every hour to see that everything was secure. There was a 45-Colt in the O.D.'s office that I could carry, but preferred my knife, since the enemy would slip up behind you and put one arearm [sic] around your neck and cut your throat with the other, without making any noise.

Prisoners were a very valuable source to learn information from about