 |
Interviewed By: Scott Mehl |
| The Japanese strike at
Pearl Harbor occurred while I was a sophomore in a pre-medical program at St.Louis
University. Growing up in a southern Illinois coal mining town, Breese, provided
little or no awareness of oceans but this did not deter me from joining the naval reserve
in 1942 and enabled me to finish my B.S. degree in the summer of 1943. Upon
graduation orders were received to report to Reserve Midshipman School, University of
Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana. Reserve midshipman school programs were designed to cover in four months what the Naval Academy offered in four years while omitting the classical courses, languages, mathematics, etc. The first month was spent as an apprentice seaman and the latter three as a midshipman, monthly pay going from $50 to $65 per month. Upon completion you were commissioned as Ensign in the naval reserve; for those that didn't succeed, it was to the fleet as enlisted personnel. Ensign's pay was $150/mo. with a 15% increase as all personnel were given for overseas duty.
This was the scenario for the landing on Saipan with our group of ships arriving on about D-Day plus 3. I remember loading our landing craft with personnel, jeeps and army trucks and taking in the first wave of boats from our ship through the channels blasted through the reefs by the underwater demolition teams prior to the invasion. All was quiet on the beach at that time which lent an eerie feeling that all hell was going to break loose any moment. Needless to say it was a great relief to see a beachmaster crawl out of fox hole, a person that I had trained with for three months and direct the troops to their various position beyond the beach. What followed was the seasoning of a "boot" Ensign to a "buck" or experienced Ensign. The next couple of weeks were spent unloading supplies 24 hours a day in support of the overall operation except during enemy air attacks, usually nuisance raids conducted by a limited number of planes. At night, radar replaced search lights in directing anti-aircraft fire. When an exploding shell lighted an aircraft, the next round would be a direct hit. Flame throwers could be seen working over bunkers and caves as the case may be; the yell of bonzai attacks would be silenced by the clatter of machine gun fire; and U.S. cruisers with six and eight inch guns pounded caves in the hills, particularly to destroy enemy ammunition dumps. One hit blew the top off the hill above the cave and the concussion from the blast rocked our 36 foot landing craft to an angle of 35-40 degrees while anchored a mile from shore. During this period a Japanese counter attack force was falsely reported and a number of ships not fully unloaded, including my mother ship were ordered out to sea and that left us living in small boats for eight days, while unloading the remaining ships. Before Saipan was half secured, mobile 155 millimeter batteries were firing hours on end at the nearby island of Tinian and waves of P-47's carried out strafing runs and dropped anti-personnel bombs on the beaches and nearby hills, making the subsequent invasion a "cake walk". The armed merchant ships were directed back to Pearl Harbor where they dispatched their landing craft, boat crews and officers at a large amphibious staging area in West Loch, one of three arms or bays of Pearl Harbor. Here temporary boat officers were given a wide variety of duties associated with such an activity. Four and a half months culminated in the outfitting of ships for the invasion of Leyte, an island in the Philippines and being ordered off the assigned ship as it was clearing the submarine nets protecting Pearl Harbor and returning to base via high speed crash boat. Upon returning to base, I was offered a permanent position but
declined. By what we I came aboard as a replacement for a boat officer that was wounded in a devastating explosion of one of our ammunition ships in the Admiralty Islands, just off the northeast coast of New Guinea. Within a short time I made radio officer and communications watch officer, positions that required clearance for handling encrypted and secret information, and doing deck officer watches only as a substitute or as needed. Junior officers were also gun battery officers during general quarters alert. My position was a couple of 20 millimeter anti-aircraft guns on the flying (top) bridge. By far and away most of our firing was in practice at "sleeves" towed on a long cable by a plane. As rotation transferred more seniior officers, I became the navigation and communications officer, with responsibilities for navigation, radar, radio and signal personnel. After 16 months as an ensign, the Navy promoted us to Lieutenant junior grade. The ship's next major assignment was joining the armada assembling for the invasion of Iwo Jima. We were singled away from our transport division, loaded with ammunition, vehicles, marines and given two destroyers to assure arrival. Enroute a typhoon was encountered and a week was spent rolling in waves that obscured the escorting destroyers. Upon arrival at Iwo Jima, seas were so high that routine unloading was impossible. Critical ammunition was unloaded onto larger landing craft that were more stable than our small boats. On one such occasion the Commodore in charge ordered us to a more protected bay for unloading. It was anticipated that our skipper would seize upon this opportunity as he was a naval academy man to the core. Instead, he refused and the Commodore, without even replying or reprimanding, ordered another ship to this location for unloading. No sooner had this ship moved into the location, an enemy shore battery fired and hit the ship in the navigation bridge. When the smoke cleared and damage assessed, there were no major personnel injuries and damage was limited to the super structure. Our captain appeared dumb founded at his own premonition. Things were touch and go for several days. U.S. destroyers were running parallel to the the landing beaches, firing from their fore and aft turrets in support of the landed marines. Our shipboard hospital was overrun with casulties. Plasma was in short supply on the front lines. Orders went out for all ships to send plasma to the beach. Our medical group strapped all of the available plasma we had to the back of one of the combat marines we were carrying, landed him on the beach and watched with binoculars as he scrambled from fox hole to fox hole. The last we saw of him, he was at the front lines. Before it was over, all of the marine officers we had aboard were stripped from their respective companies for replacement on the front lines. With the Stars and Strips flying on Mount Suribachi, it was over for our ship. We were stripped of ammunition, including rounds carried in the ammo bins at the gun locations and sent as a lone ship carrying wounded 1,500 miles away to Guam. It was back to the old routine of moving army troops from the south Pacific to the Philippines and then to New Caledonia for training with an army Ranger group in preparation for the invasion of Okinawa. While on maneuvers word came of the death of President Roosevelt, a former Secretary of the Navy and a great advocate of naval power. It so happened that this Ranger outfit was recovering from amoebic dysentery and they were unfit for any invasion. Instead, they were taken to the Philippines and we were spared from the Kamakasi attacks. We were at sea somewhere between New Guinea and the Philippines when the second atomic bomb persuaded the Japanese to throw in the towel. Orders came immediately to proceed to Manila, unload the troops we were carrying, pick up an army signal corps unit and continue to Japan for establishing communications. Two more trips were made bringing in occupation forces from the Philippines to Japan. The last trip was a "Magic Carpet" run from Tokyo to Seattle loaded with troops to be mustered out of the service. The ship went into dry dock for much needed overhaul and I went home on a 30 day leave, the first in two and a half years. The next tour of duty was with the 16th Fleet, dubbed the "Moth Ball Fleet", located at Orange, Texas whose mission was to preserve ships for future use. A month's training in ship preservation at the Philadelphia Navy Yard prepared one for this work and was also good training in the application of flexible plastics that was to become universal in future commerical packaging. Release to inactive duty in the summer of 1946 was in time to take
advantage of the G.I. Bill of Rights. For the returning service people this was
without a doubt the most rewarding opportunity for the people and the schools they
attended. |
|
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Halleck
B. "H.B." Warren
Most of the newly commissioned ensigns were assigned to the amphibious forces
in the Pacific. Such was my lot. After a couple of weeks in the San Francisco area
for gunnery training, abandon ship and survival techniques, we boarded army troop ships
headed for Honolulu, Hawaii. Upon docking, we were immediately bussed to either one
of two amphibious bases on the island of Oahu. We then received three months of
training in amphibious landings and maneuvers along with training army and marine
companys, simultaneously. Unbeknown to us, this was in preparation for the invasion
of Saipan and Guam in the Marianas chain. The landing boats we used were 36 foot
LCVP'a (landing craft vehicle personnel, capable of carrying 36 troops or a jeep and
personnel) and LCM's (landing craft mechanized, holding medium tanks or military trucks).
These boats were of swallow draft design with protected propellers for landing on
beaches and could be carried aboard ships. Most of us were ordered to armed merchant
ships which were operated by the Merchant Marine but under the direct command of the Navy.
These ships carried Navy gun crews, a hospital staffed with a naval medical doctor
and corpsmen as well as the amphibious group, consisting of an officer and crews for two
to four LCM's and eight LCVP's, all reporting to a senior naval officer aboard,
Their mission was to bring in men, larger field guns, vehicles, tanks, and supplies
behind the initial assault troops. 
would now call
"net working", I was able to obtain orders to an AKA which was an attack cargo
ship. This was home for the next 14 months. During this time the ship crossed
the equator 11 times in advancing occupation forces from the various coastal areas of New
Guinea to several of the islands in the Philippines. That made me a "shell
back" for having crossed the equator by water and a "short snorter" by
flying over it.