Mr. Powers. Yes; that's correct.
Mr. Jenner. Leave before you had to return? You had to be at El Toro?
Mr. Powers. Yes, sir.
Mr. Jenner. I gathered that you had the impression that he—during this period of time that, this leave period—that he visited New Orleans?
Mr. Powers. Now that you brought New Orleans up, he used to—he used to go home to New Orleans from Biloxi there, as I recall again. This was only a short distance, between 50 and 71 miles, and he would go home on weekend passes; and once we were through classes on Friday, we were free as long as we were in class again on Monday morning, as I recall. And it seems to me that he mentioned, or he did go home, that he wasn't in Mississippi or the Biloxi area on weekends.
I might be wrong in this, but it seems to me that he did go all weekend, and I think that you did mention New Orleans, that this possibly sticks in my mind as associated with New Orleans and him at Biloxi, Miss.
Mr. Jenner. When you boys had liberty, did you tend to stick together on your liberties or on occasion take your liberties together, one or more of you?
Mr. Powers. As I recall now, as soon as school was over every day, we had our liberty cards, we could leave, and then we could come back as long as we were back on base in the morning to attend classes, and at this particular period of time, I was married and my interests were somewhat different than the other fellows.
Mr. Jenner. Was your wife on the base?
Mr. Powers. No; she was not. She was living with my parents back home in Minnesota, Owatonna. And my liberty usually consisted of going to the beach and lying around suntanning or fooling or swimming, and lots of times maybe three or four of us would go down—in my mind, we used to eat all the spaghetti that we could get down there, and we would go downtown once in a while; but as far as particularly going together, I would possibly say that the boys from the east coast, Bandoni and Brereton, they were quite close, and Camarata, that particular group, they were quite close, and—but if we were just going down to lie around the beach, we would usually go over, and I don't recall Oswald going with us, and I don't recall in my mind that he was on liberty. And this would possibly bear out the fact that it's in my mind that he went to New Orleans on weekends because it seems that he wasn't ever around there.