Mr. POWERS. I don't know; I don't recall.
Mr. JENNER. Do you recall whether he did any gambling?
Mr. POWERS. I don't recall; no, sir.
Mr. JENNER. Anything else that you recall occurred on this ship, either
something that occurred or impressions that you have or now have of
this man during this period of time?
Mr. POWERS. No.
Mr. JENNER. For the purpose of perhaps refreshing your recollection,
was there an occasion in which he made some comment that "All the
Marine Corps did was to teach you to kill," and after you got out of
the Marines, you might be good gangsters?
Mr. POWERS. Yes; he made that statement. Now, whether it was at this
particular period of time or not, I'm not sure.
Mr. JENNER. You do recall that he made that statement?
Mr. POWERS. That statement was made and I think it was--he was probably
parroting somebody else that made the statement previously. And I think
it was--this was a common statement, but as I recall, he--he did say
this.
Mr. JENNER. Yes.
Mr. POWERS. But now when we were playing chess at one period of time,
whether it was on the ship or not, I'm not sure, possibly it could have
been in Japan, but it would most likely have been on that ship.
Mr. JENNER. I take it, however, that this you might classify as some
griping----
Mr. POWERS. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. Over the Marines?
Mr. POWERS. This would be normal.
Mr. JENNER. Or something similar?
Mr. POWERS. You wouldn't attach any significance to it. Someone would
say, "The Marine Corps stinks," or something of this type, and whether
one individual said it or another, you wouldn't attach any significance
to it.
Mr. JENNER. I see.
Atsugi is about 35 miles from Tokyo, isn't it?
Mr. POWERS. Yes; it is.
Mr. JENNER. When you reached Atsugi, what was your assignment?
Mr. POWERS. We were assigned to Marine Air Control Squadron No. 1, and
assigned to crews within this squadron.
Mr. JENNER. Did you have some abbreviation for that?
Mr. POWERS. MACS 1, M-A-C-S 1.
Mr. JENNER. And you were headquartered at the naval air station at
Atsugi, Japan?
Mr. POWERS. Yes, sir.
Mr. JENNER. Oswald--what did he serve as? I mean, was he a radar
operator?
Mr. POWERS. I assume he was a radar operator. From here I lost almost
total contact with the individual other than just seeing him. I played
football during the fall and during this period of time we would
play, we played in the bowl games, and the squadron went down to the
Philippines, and I stayed in Japan.
Mr. JENNER. You didn't go to the Philippines?
Mr. POWERS. I did at a later date, but when the rest of the squadron
went down to the Philippines, they went down, oh, I don't know,
probably sometime in November, and I stayed down and played football,
and then after that, I was wrestling--I wrestled for a while, and then
out of the blue came orders to go to the Philippines, and from that
time, I think this was sometime in the middle of January----
Mr. JENNER. What was the function of MACS 1?
Mr. POWERS. It was a squadron composed of a radar group.
Mr. JENNER. About how many men?
Mr. POWERS. Oh, in estimating, I would say 100 personnel at the most,
and its function was to support landings with the control of aircraft
to particular target areas or target sites, and you would control the
aircraft by radar rather than trying to use it all by visual flight.
Mr. JENNER. When you say "control aircraft," what do you mean by that?
Mr. POWERS. You would not actually control the aircraft by flying it
yourself, the operator or pilot would have to control the aircraft, and
you would direct him as far as his turn is concerned, and his degrees,
and turn 90° right, and you would control him to an intercept, so to
speak, to another aircraft and you would intercept it until he got in
range or where he could see it visually, and they took over.
Mr. JENNER. And you would be communicating with him in some fashion?
Mr. POWERS. Yes; you would have him on radio, and at the same time,
when we were in Atsugi, we were assigned, it seems to me, a particular
sector of the horizon to cover to protect against incoming foreign
aircraft, and you plotted it all on the board. You called it a "bogey"
coming in, and they would scramble aircraft and intercept this bogey,
if it didn't have the identification system on.