My Dad remembers that the Japanese had learned to call out "Corpsman!" so they could shoot the medic when he showed up to help. Later in the war, soldiers were instructed to shout, "Tallulah!" if they needed medical attention. Tallulah was the first name of the Hollywood movie star Tallulah Bankhead, and it was chosen because of the difficulty the Japanese had in pronouncing the letter L.
In his own way, my father got his revenge without firing a shot.
I don't understand the logistics of how the foxholes were laid out, but they were near a cliff. I can understand the logic of that. With the cliff behind them, they only had to worry about the enemy attacking them from one direction. Unfortunately, that also meant if they were overrun, they had no way to escape, unless they wanted to jump off the cliff to their death. You could say it gave them an added incentive to fight.
Earlier that day, my father had found a can of Japanese C-rations when he was on patrol. And that night, in his foxhole, my father was a combination of bored and hungry, so he ate it.
"How bad could it be?" he reasoned.
Well, it was very bad, and my father got a severe case of diarrhea.
Unfortunately, it was an extremely dark night. At night, even under a full moon, no one left their foxholes for fear of being mistaken for an enemy soldier. It wouldn't be the first time someone got killed because one of their fellow soldiers wasn't able to tell who was sneaking around in the darkness.
But my father had to go, so he used the empty C-ration can as a makeshift toilet. I'm sure whoever was in the foxhole with him was appreciative of his ingenuity. When he was done, my father tossed the freshly filled C-ration can over the cliff he was near.
"Shit going in, shit going out," my father told his friend, who was busy holding his nose.
It just so happened that there was a platoon of Japanese soldiers at the bottom of that cliff, and Dad and his friend laughed when they heard excited Japanese soldiers curse in surprise when his "shit-bomb" hit the bottom and "exploded."
"What happened, Longball?" another soldier in another foxhole wanted to know. "Longball" was the nickname my father's buddies gave him, for reasons that aren't appropriate for a family blog.
When my father explained what happened, everybody got a good laugh. My father and his buddy laughed even harder the second time around.
As it turned out, it wasn't the only container of diarrhea my father threw over the cliff that night, and it soon became a game with the platoon. Every time someone needed to go to the bathroom, they would take an empty C-ration can, fill it, and then toss it over the cliff. The angry Japanese response never failed to make them laugh. Somehow the response seemed even funnier in Japanese.
Why didn't the Japanese soldiers simply move?
Probably because that's where they were ordered to stay, and no one there had the authority to override that command.
The next morning, when my father was asked why he ate the Japanese C-ration that gave him the diarrhea, he simply answered, "Because I was hungry."
Food was sometimes scarce for American soldiers stationed in the Philippines, and it was scarce for the enemy as well. One Japanese soldier was so hungry he foolhardedly showed up at my Dad's camp in an Army uniform and got in the chow line with the other American soldiers. He was immediately recognized and wrestled to the ground. Everybody wanted to take a shot at him, because they understood the significance of where he got the uniform he was wearing.
Eventually, the Captain showed up and took the hungry Japanese soldier into custody, and the hungry Japanese P.O.W. finally got what he risked his life for.
Something to eat.
Raising My Father
RaisinngMyFather.BlogSpot.com
jimduchene.BlogSpot.com Fifty Shades of Funny
@JimDuchene
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