Shoved off at last. A Dutch cruiser takes us through the mine fields. The boys say it’s pretty around here. I hold my mirror up so I can look out the porthole, but it’s too much effort to raise my head. We are going to stop at a little bay in Timor for something. All the water is shut off. We are being rationed now, even drinking water. Had a couple of cups of beef tea. The smell from the galley comes into our room and damn near gags me. All Filipino cooks and help and the inevitable rice, fish and I think it’s water buffalo. Smells like hell. Poor old Passanante’s leg! He sure needs something to relieve him. We heard that the dock at Macassar was mined with the controls going up to Headquarters in town and, that day of the alarm, they were all set to blow it up. And we were tied alongside it. Hot Dog!
William A. Fairfield
(? — October 1975), Engineering officer for the 19th Bombardment Group, Clark Field, Pampanga. Evacuated to Australia on the SS Mactan, 1942.
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