Food Drops

Heroes Remember

Food Drops

Transcript

The Japanese were getting awful nice to us and we found that funny why they were getting nice and there was the rumor going around that they dropped these atomic bombs which we didn’t know what that was. And anyway this kept on for a couple of weeks and holy jeez the Japs were very nice to us. Anyway, we come back to camp and the Japs used to come and bow to us and all this and that and we had that in our mind. We figured there was something up but we didn’t know what was up but what we had in our minds when we found out for sure we were gonna get a hold of those Japs and they would all be dead. Anyway, we got up in the morning and there wasn’t a jeezly Jap around at all. We were all by ourselves in that camp, and the first damn thing the British or the Americans started coming over head with those big jeezly planes and fighter planes and they’d make circles and make signs saying get the hell out of the road we’re dropping and they get dropping these big drums, you know, with parachutes. Some of them wouldn’t open, holy jeez, they’d drop it on a Japanese house and they squashed everything. And they were dropping food all over the place, everywhere, big 29’s and everything flying overhead and they were flying low too and they were dropping food, too damn much food for us. We knew we were gonna get out of there. They were gonna move us and we put sheets out there on the parade ground trying to tell them that we didn’t want no more food. We didn’t know what to do with it, but they didn’t pay no attention to that. They’d come over, cripes I was more scared there than I was when they were up there dropping bombs because we had no place to go, it was dangerous.

Description

Mr. Lecouffe notes a new friendliness among the Japanese guards, only to find that they all soon disappear. The Americans begin a non-stop food drop which Mr. Lecouffe deems more frightening than a real bombing raid.

Lionel Lecouffe

Lionel Lecouffe was born in Campbellton, New Brunswick on March 23, 1922. His father was a First World War veteran and his mother a war bride. Mr. Lecouffe worked on the road for food vouchers before becoming a deliveryman to Easton Bakery at $2 a day. Only seventeen and already a member of the Campbellton militia, he lied about his age to enlist with the Royal Rifles at Matapedia. Ironically, after his release from a Hong Kong hospitalization, Mr. Lecouffe found himself attached to the Winnipeg Grenadiers with whom he finished the war.

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