Roman describes the tent he shared on Biak with Lieutenant Hall and Lieutenant Peck — built by hand with a machete from their emergency kits, scrounged wood and netting, a rainwater catch system rigged from a spare fuel tank, and a foxhole dug down through solid coral for the nights Japanese bombers came over. The area had been secured only weeks earlier, and the aftermath was still everywhere: they had to step around decomposing bodies just getting to the mess tent, and a trip into the nearby caves with Hall turned up a dead Japanese officer tied to a post and more bodies inside.
"I'd met Peck back at Polytechnic High School in Los Angeles... we both became aviation cadets together. I didn't see him again until we were training with our crews — and, as it happened, we ended up tentmates."
Roman and Peck's paths had crossed years earlier, before either had a crew or a war to fly in — a coincidence that only became clear once they found themselves sharing a tent on Biak. Peck went overseas a month or two after Roman did. In January 1945, his aircraft was shot down over Luzon near Manila; the crew survived the crash landing, only to be executed by Japanese soldiers on the spot. Lieutenant Hall made it through the war. So did Roman.
[This is a condensed excerpt for the sketch — the full page would carry the complete cleaned transcript, as already sent to Bernard for review.]
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