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Paul Jones Interview
The trip overseas took 54 days, and there were about 20,000 – 30,000 people on the boat. We left from San Francisco on a captured Italian luxury liner that was captured in South America. The US captured the liner and used it as military transport. We went to Wellington, New Zealand and then to Melbourne, Australia. After Melbourne, we went to Bombay. Most of the boys went to Burma to fight the Japanese. The rest went to the Persian Gulf on a cattle boat, that had a ceiling that was only six feet high. For meat on the cattle boat, they used old, stale kangaroo. Then the American officers dumped it overboard once it was too stale, and used canned goods instead.

Meredith - March 5, 1942
I guess by the time you will read this you will be wondering where in the world I am. All I can say is that I am still in the world and “somewhere in Australia.”


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