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would send me, along with some of my friends and we would clean all that mess up. When you went to the toilet, the motion of the waves pushed you off so you often slid around in the feces and urine; it was a real mess, just terrible. One time we had the duty of emptying out the garbage cans. Strung along the decks were a couple of cables which went through posts and you would unlock these or untie them or something. Then you would have nothing between you and the sea to catch you except the water if you went over with these cans. We sure as heck weren't going to go over with those cans because the fish and sharks would sidle up along there and they would eat up that garbage as fast as you could put it out. I remember one time the damn can went over and this kid was hanging on to the can and had another hand on the post. I said, "Let that damn can go buddy. They're not going to miss another can." I don't know how many we threw over deck but we threw a lot of them. Here's something that happened. I was on deck where I spent most of my time because it was cooler up there. I noticed that there were some crates of oranges with some ropes around them. The ship was pushing and I looked and I said, "Boy, those oranges are going to come loose and when they get loose I'm going to get me some of them." We never had any fresh fruit like that down below. We stuck around and those doggone things broke. The crates spilled down and the oranges went all over the place. The officers came around and gave us buckets and they wanted us to pick
those things up after things calmed down we had to take and put them in the bucket. (tape side ended) Mr. Misenhimer So you got the oranges.
The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an interview with Albert Finley. Finley joined the Marine Corps around December of 1943. He provides vivid details of his boot camp experiences. He served with Headquarters Company, 4th Marines, as a radar mechanic on Corsairs, repairing radio and radar gear. Beginning in September of 1944 they traveled to Guam, Kwajalein, Pearl Harbor and Majuro in the Marshall Islands. Finley shares a number of anecdotal stories, including working with POWs. He was discharged in the fall of 1946.
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