LG93M

GROUND CREWS WERE LEFT BEHIND

75% of the 19th BG did not get out of P.I.

S/Sgt Garland W. Lawson, Bentonville, AK

Most of the 93rd Sqd were left in P.I. About 25 of the 257 men in Hq Sqd were left in P.I. About 167 EM out of the whole group 19th BG got out of P.I, at least 75% of the 19th didn’t get out. Very few of the air crew were left behind to fight in the infantry -- mostly ground crew.

At 4 pm on Xmas day we had boiled beef and cold coffee for dinner, it was very hot. 3 flights of 27 bombers each had been over an hour before dinner. We were down on the beach in a little fishing hut. They set up two field stoves and had provisions stacked up underneath this hut. The sand smelled bad, and we had to eat close to it. The other boys above us didn’t eat much better only they had a better place to eat. We slept on the ground with a blanket underneath us. Some were lucky in having mosquito netting. Nobody had cots. A few had shelter halves. A few of the men got malaria, and some got bad cases of piles from the damp ground. Some didn’t even make the trip from Bataan to Mindanao because of waiting for pile operations.