wall. The bag flew down from the plane, and its velocity propelled it like a missile right through the solid brick wall, making a three foot hole straight before my eyes only about 20ft away. He waved to me and I waved back thrilled at the excitement of being so close to an aircraft flying so low, and I watched as he pushed out a second bag which flew ahead crashing through a small apricot tree about 100 ft on my right. I did not know then at that very moment, that poor Caroline Dimitricopoulos the Dutch wife of the Greek ship’s radio operator, was behind the tree and was struck by the impact and had her skull fractured. She was immediately carried indoors and rushed to hospital but died at midnight, never regaining consciousness. What a tragedy this was for the poor woman, from a poor background, an ardent self taught intellectual, very well read and educated. She was a fanatical Communist, aged only 31 and it was a real calamity to be killed after having endured all the hardships just at the point when we were being liberated, and the long gruelling war was at last over. Her poor husband, a huge 6 foot Greek from Samos was devastated and none of the other Greeks or anyone else for that matter could console him for his sad loss at such a happy time as he wept and cried his eyes out. After this tragic incident Capt. Stratford immediately informed the US Army about what had happened and they decided that in future supplies would be dropped using B29 bombers from Saipan 1,600 miles away. To obviate against any accidents, the drops would be made on the Fukushima racecourse which was about half a mile away. Again to start with cargo parachutes were used attached to oil drums filled with every conceivable form of tinned food. The nylon parachutes again were coloured, but for the larger loads of two drums at a time heavy woven white cargo chutes would be used. We would take a heavy cart out onto the racecourse , and many journeys would be needed to bring the supplies back safely to the camp. It was very frightening to be in the dropping zone and suddenly see ahead the great bomber in the distance, with its bomb bays open heading, directly for you. We would run and run away as fast as possible to get out of the line of flight, but the plane seemed to be ever chasing after you however fast one ran and as if in some nightmare dream it would seem to endlessly follow you. After a few drops once again, parachutes were dispensed with, and supplies were just dropped on pallets straight from the bomb bays at about 300 ft above, to land in a crash that would shatter the tins on impact, or sometimes a whole carton would be so interlocked in such a twisted mass of metal, that it was impossible to retrieve anything from it. The waste of food was stupendous and quite incomprehensible to us who had been starving and ekeing out our meagre supplies so thriftily, only now be overwhelmed by the sheer weight of “material” from the vast productive power of the US economy. Nothing was too much trouble for them. When we asked if it was possible to have some newspapers a plane was sent from Saipan with tons of oil drums packed with every conceivable paper from all the small cities spread across that vast country. In vain did we scour the papers to see any mention whatsoever of Britain’s role in the war. The war was a total US effort , but we did read for the first time about the Atom Bomb that had brought the war to its sudden end and had ultimately saved our lives. Those first few days of Peace had naturally brought us a complete and sudden change in our conditions. First of all there was now no more coercion so that life in the camp was a last relaxed. Most important though was the lack of hunger. When one is perpetually hungry there is a constant gnawing of ones stomach and mind, that is impossible to adequately describe to someone who has not actually starved for years on end. Suddenly, to have enough to eat, took a whole nagging burden off ones mind and released ones thoughts to think of other things. This was especially so in my case, as with the other children who were growing, we

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