"One day, we liberated a cave full of foodstuffs, and they found this big can, and we weren’t supposed to eat it, they said, you know, “Don’t touch the food, they probably poisoned it.'   But, there’s a sealed can, I figured, 'They didn’t make it here, why would they poison it? They have to eat it themselves,” so I opened it up with a bayonet, and little cubes of meat, evidently horse meat, and we’ve been living on K-rations, and so, this looked good.  Some of the kids said, 'Lieutenant, you told us, you were a short order cook. Please, start cooking.' So, I got some plastic C-2, which is a plastic explosive, it burns, and I said, 'Look for these,' the Japs had vegetable gardens and, of course, it’s all trampled, blown out, 'find anything that’s green.'

So, they found some scallions, and we rinsed them off with our canteen water, threw it in there, and the sergeant major was leaning against a rock wall, and he had a handlebar mustache.  He was a twenty-year man, and I said, 'Top, you get the first taste,' and he leaned over, he took his taste, and then he keeled over. I mean, 'My God, it was poisoned. I’m going to be court-martialed.' Then I looked behind him, he had had six bottles of sake! He got to the cave before we did, and disposed of all the sake! He was stone drunk! But, that was the best meal we had.  They loved it. They kept looking for more. That was the only time we had a chance for hot food.

- Irvin Baker, Akron, Ohio

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