Whenever the unit stopped for lunch, they gathered around to get the leftovers from C rations: sugar cubes, hard candies, and little packets of soluble coffee. He was as interested in the local area and peoples as he was in the military experience, and frequently commented on how eager the children were to be around the soldiers.
He and his fellow soldiers arrived in North Africa April 13, 1943, and spent most of the time through Januin Tunisia. He was ‘behind the lines,’ i.e., arriving in a location after the Germans had been defeated and the location at least somewhat secured. McCutchan served as Company Clerk with the 335 th Engineer Regiment. UASC MSS 004-0217, the Kenneth McCutchan Collection Had it not been for that little camera, the picture record of my experiences which follows in this book would never have been made.” If it was confiscated, I thought, there won’t be much lost, so I decided upon taking the chance of smuggling it across, with five rolls of film as a starter, in the toe of my overshoes. I owned a little inexpensive Brownie that I had purchased at the PX at Fort Leonard Wood the autumn before. In his preface to this scrapbook, he admits to a bit of misbehavior: “Back in the spring of 1943 cameras were forbidden to soldiers going overseas. He provides information such as background or history of the locations. Those notes were very detailed-he names the soldier in a picture, says where his hometown was, and tells something about him. He kept notes and completed this when he finally returned home as he could not have carried something this large with him. In addition to his journal entries, he recorded his time overseas in an incredible scrapbook (185 pages!) he entitled 959 Days Overseas.
Everything looks just the same as when I left, and I know that in a short time, as I look back upon the past years, it will be hard to realize that it really happened.” After some 8 months of training in various locations, McCutchan embarked on duty overseas in March 1943. “Arrived at the local airport shortly before noon and as the plane taxied up the runway I could see Mother standing there waiting-all dressed up in her Paris hat.
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