From the Phillipines we worked our way south through various groups of islands. It was April 1945 by now and we picked up news of Roosevelts death in the U.S. with Truman taking over as president. Then the big news was Victory in Europe , the news of the end of the war in Europe was greeted with loud cheers. We were around the Solomon Islands at the time and of course we spliced the mainbrace and had a ships concert, this concert was strange for me as the star of the show was a prisoner in the cells at the time.
What happened was this, I was guarding the prisoner called McGee who was half Irish and half Italian and he had been allowed to take his mandolin in the cells with him, he used to drive me up the wall half the time while I was on watch, strumming away and singing. Anyway a P.O. came around to the cells one night and asked me if he could give McGee a tot of rum- it wasn't really allowed but I let him, and the P.O. asked McGee if he would give a turn on the concert. Of course McGee agreed and after another tot I marched him on deck and sat in the wings while he did his stuff. He really excelled himself that night and the lads gave him a big cheer. They all knew of course that he was in chokey. After his turn (and a couple more sly tots that were slipped to him), I marched him back to his cell where he proceeded to serenade me with his mandolin for the rest of my watch.
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