Buck Matthews
Rescue
Officers Quarters at K-46 were large tents with wooden floors. The tents were “conveniently” located on either side of the latrine--the large building in the center. “Got up at 5:30 to fly a plane back up here [K-46] from down south,” Lt. Archie Connors wrote his mother, Eva. It sure was nice down there [K-10]. No snow and sheets to sleep on, even running water in the commodes. Speaking of commodes, it is just a trough with a box over it and a hole in the box. If you have to go early in the morning the smell knocks you out.”
In one of my letters home, I said I thought the main reason for publishing a Pacific edition of Stars and Stripes was to provide us with something to use in the latrine – and I wasn’t talking about reading.
Generally speaking, the Air Force did a pretty good job of providing for our needs - with one significant exception. We never had enough toilet paper.
We could never trust that when nature called, there would be any available.
More often than not, one roll had to serve all five holes and it would get tossed back and forth like a football.
This predicament was apparently amusing to those whose own supply of Scottisue was, let’s say, bottomless. It even became a topic of conversation in the women’s coat department at Woodward & Lothrop Department Store in Washington, where my Aunt Helen was a salesperson.
One of her customers was married to the manager of the Willard Hotel, who related the story to one of the paper peddlers who called on him – and he to his regional manager.
And so, a month or so later – possibly February 1952 – the mail plane delivered to me a case (100 rolls) of premium butt wipe – and suddenly I was the most popular Airman in the Far East Command.
© Copyright 2008 Buck Matthews. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted for commercial purposes without permission in writing from the author. Used with permission by BelleAire Press as a tribute to those American servicemen and women who served during the Korean War.