Lt McCaffery rotated home and 1st Lt. William T. Bailey, Banzai, was assigned to command "F" Company.  Unfortunately Bailey did not arrive before the company lost two good officers.  Lt. Emery Ball was transferred to "E" Company and Lt. Sidney Brock was transferred to the Third Battalion.  Bailey was welcomed with open arms.

The camp was built on newly cleared land that had been coastal rain forest.  The ground was damp and black.  We hauled hundreds of loads of coral and spread it.  We would dig into coral embankments.  The coral was loose and handled like damp sand.  It was easy to shovel.  We spread this to have a dry place for the men, the tent floors, walks, and company streets.  Like caliche coral hardens after it is exposed to air and packs making a good all weather surface.  We made tent frames from small tree trunks about four to five inches in diameter.  We used fifty-five gallon drums (these were plentiful because they were Jap gasoline drums) to make water tanks mounted about seven feet above the ground on tree trunk frames.  Water had to be carried up a ladder to fill the drums lying on their sides.  Holes were punched into a bucket or can hung by a wire below the hole in the barrel to make a shower head.  I don’t know whose idea this was, but it was so much work filling the barrel that it was easier to walk the quarter of a mile or so to some springs and bathe.