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[StartQuote] Here's one sent to me from Master Chief Jack Duncan, retired, who served as torpedoman on PT 103 from 1943 to 1944. Jack also served on PT 62 and PT 318 as well as the PTFs of the 'Nam era: [blue]MESS KIT SPECIAL ************************************************************* This is a tale from an island far, far away at a time long, long ago. Specifically, Stirling Island in what is now the nation of the Solomon Islands. Food was very, very scarce and monotonous as our little, green "plywood" warships, actually just overgrown speedboats, tied up to the trees in one of several inlet arms. We could rest there, rearm and refuel before going out to beard the Imperial Japanese Navy and Army in their own lairs. The trees provided cover from the constant air raids with Jap planes hoping to smash our puny onslaught against them. We were all in danger of contracting scurvy with the shortage of nourishing, fresh food, so the cooks on our boat, a guy named Larson, a Ship’s Cook First Class, decided to build us a stew. France, Ship’s Cook Third Class, who was his helper, were really not doing much as "belly-robbers" or "stew burners" otherwise. They were included in the crew mostly to man the guns. The PT Base, was it 9 (?), was supposed to feed us after we had trekked through the jungle and after we had dipped our mess kits in a boiling, 55-gallon drum of disinfectant. Now, the PT-103 for some odd Bureau of Ships reason had in its equipage a couple of .22 rifles down in the armory just behind the wardroom. And flocks of white parrots or perhaps cockatoos lived in the trees we were hiding under. "Parrot stew" it would be, so a couple of us began "harvesting" the birds. They would land and they would die. Finally, we had collected enough so that with some withered vegetables begged from a nearby seaplane tender, we kids could feast right there on the boat. We had to be very careful to avoid the tiny bones. The beautiful birds filled our empty bellies and we enjoyed a respite from "corned willy," "meat and vegetable stew ration" and whatever that was in cans labeled as "Vienna sausage." Later, our diet became largely coconut as those three entrees became unbearable. Ripe coconut like you can buy in a supermarket. Green coconut with a Jello-like substance and overripe coconuts containing a palm tree bud that became our "salad." Little did we know that shark was delicious and even octopus tastes great. The "word" was out that most of the tropical ocean’s denizens were poisonous! For some still-unfathomable reason the Navy always provided canned grapefruit juice for us to be forced to drink, also to prevent scurvy. A canteen cup of that was used to wash down the daily Atabrine tablet that was supposed to prevent malaria. If the Supply "wienies" managed to get that vile stuff to us, we called it battery acid, why didn’t we get better or at least a larger variety of food? The point? To this day, no grapefruit and no coconut. Now, I haven’t tried parrot stew of late . . . . . . . ,[/blue] Other stories by Jack can be found here: [url]http://www.pt103.com/PT_Boat_Veteran_Stories.html[/url] [EndQuote]
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