Daily Living on Guadalcanal

Discussion in 'War Against Japan' started by jacobtowne, Dec 6, 2006.

  1. jacobtowne

    jacobtowne Senior Member

    I recently discovered a copy of Guadalcanal Diary in my local public library. It's a first edition, 1943, with a bit on the back of the dust cover exhorting readers to Buy War Bonds and Stamps!

    Since I had never read the book, I borrowed it, wanting to get a war correspondent's "first draft of history" perspective.
    Author Richard Tregaskis landed at Lunga with Col. LeRoy P. Hunt's 5th Marines of the 1st Division on August 7th.

    On August 17th, he met British district officer and coastwatcher Martin Clemens, who walked shoeless into Gen. Vandegrift's HQ. Clemens had remained on Guadalcanal for the entire previous three-month Japanese occupation.

    Here's an entry from Tuesday, Sept. 1st.


    "Increased numbers of ships have been coming in with supplies of late, including food as well as ammunition. Soon, we hope, we may be able to start eating three meals a day, getting away from our present scanty schedule of two meals.
    "We are also becoming a little more comfortable in our island quarters. A few elementary necessities like privies have been slammed together, mostly made from prefabricated Japanese housing sections which we captured here.
    "Our privy, at Col. Hunt's command post, is called "McLeod's Masterpiece," after Lt. McLeod, who built it. A rope set on stakes has been constructed leading from the command post to the masterpiece, so that one may find his way in the dark. Lt. Wilson has labelled this the "McLeoderheim Line," and set up a poster celebrating the fact.
    "It is startling to think how one's standards of values change under the continued impetus of living conditions such as ours on Guadalcanal. Things like bread and privies, considered the barest necssities at home, become luxuries. One thinks of warm water...and a bed with sheets as things that exist only in a world of dreams."


    At 6 foot 7 inches, Tregaskis was a big man who consumed two steaks, rather than one, at dinner (at home, not on Guadalcanal), so the short rations must have been pretty unpleasant for him. At the end of his stay in late September, he was reduced to wearing rubber-soled canvas tennis shoes, since his leather shoes had worn out, and the Marine quartermaster had no such thing as a size 14.

    JT
     

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