Two days after we had been officially informed by the Chief of Police that hostilities were now at an end, Captain Stratford received a telephone call from the American Army Authorities in Tokyo, to say that it would be some time before we could receive any visit from them, and repatriation home would probably be at the very least a month away, but in the meantime we were given a telephone contact number to help in any emergency. We were also instructed that we could soon expect to receive air drops of food supplies providing our camp was clearly identified with a large PW sign so as to be easily identifiable from the air. Immediately we had large 10 ft letters laid out in the grounds of our compound clearly identifying our camp and location, and on the 25th August in the morning 12 carrier planes appeared on a reconnaissance flight circling quite high. They were followed by a return visit in the early afternoon by four Grumman Avenger bombers from the USS Lexington this time parachuting our first relief food supplies. They came flying low at about 300 ft high and parachuted food supplies packed into oil drums into the muddy paddy fields opposite. The parachutes looked so pretty coloured red, blue, yellow and white nylon a material that we had never seen before. Everyone scrambled to help retrieve the packages and the canned food which was eagerly shared around, breaking at long last our three years of perpetual hunger. After a couple of days however the flying became much lower at only low tree top height or about 30 ft above the ground and parachutes were dispensed with. The planes would merely sortie round to warn us of their presence, then they would return with their bomb bays open and drop the packages which were just loose cartons of food into the wet paddy fields opposite. It was an exciting start to the excitement and strangeness of peace to see at such close quarters at just over the trees, the standard torpedo bombers that had wrecked such havoc, destroyed the Japanese Navy and bombed Japan from one end to another. Here they were now here in our very presence so close at hand, dropping the food that we had been crying out for. As they flew low dropping their loads often there would be a crew member standing by the open side door waving to us with thumbs up signs. The US Navy white star and double flashes on the aircraft so close by, with their cheerful happy aircrew gave us the promise of a final recognition, after all the trials that we had undergone. We knew that there were now friends in the wide outside world who were acutely conscious of our great ordeal, and they were now present, willing and able to give us immediate practical help. Amongst the cartons and kitbags of tinned peaches, spam, chocolate etc. were friendly notes from ordinary crew members from the four aircraft carriers, the USS Lexington, Yorktown, Saratoga and Essex that were doing the drops. Each day for the next four days we were visited, with supplies dropped close by the camp in the paddy fields opposite and sometimes even within the camp compound which on account of its relatively small size, needed very accurate flying, as well as aiming and timing the drops very precisely. Inevitably there were errors, and one afternoon a cluster of cartons rained down on the side of the building covering it with tinned peaches which in the intense summer heat festered and were soon covered in flies and stank. Another carton crashed through the roof into the women’s quarters injuring a lady, fortunately not seriously. On the 27th August, however during the late afternoon I was in the garden on the north side of our compound when an Avenger flew low towards me, with its bomb bays open, but standing up by the side of the open starboard door, a crewman pushed out first one kitbag of supplies on the other side of our high brick perimeter

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