Bobby Lee Pettit Oral History Monologue

Bobby Pettit:

This recording was begun on May the 28th, the year 2001. It’s made exclusively for the use of Bruce Pettit in the preparation of a book concerning the war in the Pacific. The recording will be divided into several different parts, the first part will be some basic data, the second will be the pre-war years in Houston leading up to my enlistment in the Navy in 1942, the next section will concern boot camp in San Diego, and the following section will be experiences aboard the USS Tallulah AO-50, and that will be followed by experiences aboard the LCIL-750 and a section will be an effort on my part to obtain an honorable discharge.

Basic data, I was born in Houston, Texas on December the 31st,

1928. However, my ID card in the Navy reads December the 31st,

1924. I enlisted in the Navy as an apprentice seaman in

Houston, Texas on December the 22nd, 1942 at the age of enlistment, I was thirteen years old and I was discharged on

November the 7th, 1945. My rating upon discharge was First Class

Petty Officer, Electrician’s Mate First Class. My physical size

at the time I enlisted, according to my identification card, I

was five feet, eight and a half inches tall and weight one

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hundred and forty-three pounds. During the period of my

enlistment from ’42 to ’45, I was awarded the following

decorations, the American Campaign Medal, the Asiatic-Pacific

Campaign Medal with one silver star -- silver star is equal to

five bronze stars each, representing a major combat mission -- a

World War II Victory Medal, and the Philippine Liberation Ribbon

with one bronze star. The Philippines never issued a medal on

the ribbon. I served on the USS Tallulah, which was the AO-50.

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From the 9th of April, 1943 until March the 16th 1944.

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I was transferred from the LCIL-750 on October the 29th, 1945.

And I was transferred to the [receiving?] barracks at Treasure

Island, California.

I went aboard the LCI on June the 1st, 1944 and left the LCI on

October the 29th, 1945. The LCI-750 was in division forty-five,

squadron twenty-three, flotilla eight of the Pacific fleet, and

it was commissioned in April 17th, 1944 in Astoria, Oregon.

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My pre-war days in Houston was pretty much like anyone in any other city, I suppose. Houston was a relatively small city at the time and its main course of business was with, then, oil, cotton, and cattle. In the late ’30s, early ’40s, we were still in the Depression, things were kind of tight there and it was kind of difficult to get along. My dad was a Methodist minister, but he died when I was ten months old so he left me and two older sisters, along with my mother. My older sister had to drop out of school and take a job to help support the family. She got married after a few years and then the burden sort of fell on my second sister who had to do a similar kind of thing, drop out of school and help support the family. In the meantime, I was doing all sorts of menial jobs that I could find. I mowed grass, shined shoes in a barber shop, sacked groceries down at a grocery store, and had an early morning paper route. I was twelve years old when I heard about the

Japanese bombing Pearl Harbor, but frankly, they say that when you hear something like that you never forget where you were when you heard it. But in my case, at twelve years old, I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention, I guess, to what was going on because I don’t remember specifically where I was and what I was doing when I heard the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. I know

3 for sure that I didn’t know where Pearl Harbor was, as most people didn’t know where Pearl Harbor was. But it didn’t take us long to find out.

And almost immediately, the climate changed in Houston. The business started hiring everybody and anybody they could, and along the Gulf coast there were shipbuilding firms that were hiring people and so the Depression rapidly disappeared. And I was in junior high school at George Washington Junior High

School in Houston, Texas at the time, and I was in the -- what we call -- the low eighth grade. I was sort of an average student, I didn’t spend a lot of time studying, I was more interested in basketball and football and things of that nature and girls than I was into studying. And the war took immediate effect on our school. All the intermural activities and sports competitions between the various junior high schools came to a halt because of the shortage of rubber and gasoline and so forth. So we were knocked out of playing interscholastic football and basketball and all the other sports because we didn’t have the means to be transported from one school to the other for the games. But we had a good school and we endured those early years. We had scrap drives where all the kids were let out of school to scour the neighborhood for metal objects of various kinds and other types of materials, I guess, for the war

4 effort. And that was a lot of fun; we enjoyed that. About that time, I had an uncle who owned a dairy farm and he took me up to

Texas A&M one day to take a look at a bull or a stallion, I’m not sure which at this time, but I was very impressed at Texas

A&M. At that time, it was a small college known as the

Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas, and it was an all- male all-military school and I was extremely impressed when I saw the cadets bounding across the prairie and the caissons drawn by horses in a cloud of dust, I never forgot that and it planted the seed the bore fruit to later, after I got out of the service.

Houston was pretty much completely void of civilian men who were old enough to be in the service. They were replaced by cadets from Ellington Field who, I believe, they were cadets for bombardiers and navigation and [not?] pilots. They were stationed at Ellington Field nearby Houston and it was common to see them in downtown Houston because there were no shopping malls in the outskirts in those days, all there was was a simple core of the city and that’s where everything happened.

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Houston was a real gung-ho town; everybody that was old enough to enlist in the service was doing so. And this sentiment was emphasized even more when, on the March 1st of 1942, the Japanese sank the cruiser USS Houston and this resulted in a flood of recruits for the Navy, and one large swearing in ceremony was held on Main Street in Houston and the Navy billed the recruiting drive as “Avenge the Houston.” And that brought in a lot of sailors. Part of that, in about 1938 or ’39, I had an uncle, his name was [Doc?] Pettit, he was a veteran of World War

I. He took me down to the Houston ship channel, which leads down to Galveston Bay, and the cruiser Houston was in port back at that time and we went aboard the cruiser and was escorted around and I was thoroughly impressed by what I saw and I thought that this would be a good experience, to be in the Navy, and that seed was planted at that time. And with the sinking of the Houston, I started thinking more and more about that, even though I was, at the time in December of, let’s see, ’42, I was still in junior high school that a friend of mine, Richard

[Jinky?], he was fifteen years old and he and I got the idea that we would like to enlist. And we tried to figure out how to do that. Richard, being a little bit older and a little bit bolder, he went down to the post office in downtown Houston and enlisted somewhere along about October, and it was about, I guess, early December or the latter part of November, he

6 enlisted and was shipped off to San Diego. So I got to thinking, Well, if Richard could do, I certainly could do it.

Because I was bigger than he was by a long shot. And on the 22nd of December, 1942, I went down to the Navy office to enlist -- it was the same enlistment and recruiting office that Richard had gone to and also the same recruiting office that Calvin

[Graham?] enlisted in, and he enlisted when he was twelve years old. He inspired the television movie “Too Young the Hero.”

But Calvin, someone gave away his age and he was put out of the

Navy without any benefits after having served aboard the battleship North Dakota or South Dakota, I forget which, but the battleships were operating around Guadalcanal at that time and he encouraged some severe injuries after that battleship was hit. But the Navy couldn’t put him ashore because there was no place to put him so he stayed throughout those battles and then was sent back to the states and put into the big for lying about his age and no one knew where he was until one of his prison mates got out and informed his sister where he was. And his sister took efforts to get him out of the brig and get him out of the Navy.

But anyway, I went down to sign up and the Navy didn’t ask me for a birth certificate or anything else. I just filled out the papers and said, “Have your parents sign these.” And of course,

7 my father being dead, the only one that was able to sign was my mother. And when I told her what I’d done, she was very reluctant to sign. First of all, she was a very religious person and she didn’t want to sign something that was a lie, but

I figured that I would win her over [through?] I went ahead and quit school and was really doing nothing, in part, mostly to encourage her to sign the papers. She consulted with my Uncle

Doc, the Navy veteran, and her brother my Uncle Tom [Simmons?], and between the three of them they decided to go ahead and have her sign the papers, which she did. I took them back to the recruit station, and this was either right before Christmas or right after Christmas, and I was very anxious to get going.

They gave me orders -- written orders -- to report back to my residence and remain there for further orders. So I didn’t hear anything for a number of days and I was getting kind of concerned I wouldn’t hear from the Navy, but I finally got orders that told me to report to the recruiting station on about

January the 5th of 1943.

So I reported there, along with a large contingent of other boys from Houston -- most of them several years older than I was.

But we were sworn in and we fell in out in front of the post office in the middle of the street and we marched, of a sorts, to a Union Station in Houston. And all along the way, the

8 street was lined with people clapping and waving and so forth.

And my uncle, he was right along the side -- he and his family -

- and we got to the train station and started boarding the trains and I said goodbye to my uncle and whoever else was with him, I forget who it might have been, but we got aboard the train and we were all hanging out the window, talking, laughing, and joking. Finally we got underway, and I think back and wonder just how many of those boys that left that day, that left over there, and didn’t return. We didn’t know where we were going. I got aboard the train and I was --

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I was wanting a lower bunk so I could look out the window, but I wasn’t able to get one so I had to have the top bunk where you couldn’t see anything. But I was hoping we weren’t going north, because that would mean going to Great Lakes and Great Lakes

Naval Training Station, which I didn’t want because that was the ticket to the Atlantic, and I wanted to go to the Pacific. As we went along, we could tell by the towns that we were passing through that we were headed west, so that was a relief that we were going to San Diego. So we moved along and I was able to see that we were going through west Texas -- we went through

Mule Shoe, Texas and over on into New Mexico and into Arizona,

9 passed through around Flagstaff, Arizona. And it was high altitude there and green trees and we saw snow on the mountains there that was alongside the tracks. That was about the second time I’d ever seen snow; I saw snow one time in Houston.

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As we came down out of the high elevation areas into the desert of Arizona and on into the desert of California, it was extremely hot. The train had no air conditioning on it and the windows were open, the dust was blowing in, and it was an old- time steam engine, coal-fired, and when we’d go through a tunnel, the tunnel would fill with smoke and all the smoke would filter back into the train. So we constantly had smoke or dust blowing in the windows, very hot. Before we left out of Texas we went through Lovett, Texas, and see [sight?] of Texas Tech

University. And we pulled into the station there and the girls from college came down to greet us and the boys were hanging out the windows trying to kiss the girls and it was quite a scene.

For eating, we had, I think, sandwiches on the train and at least once a day we’d stop at a town that had a Hardy hotel and a Hardy Girls and we’d go inside and have a pretty good meal.

But we got into California -- [Pine Needles?], California -- and we arrived in San Diego on the 8th of January. There were buses

10 there to meet us and we piled aboard the buses and were driven to the Naval Training Station and pulled in the gates there.

And there were recruits working on the lawns there and work details that all of them had probably been there only a few days themselves, and they greeted us all with, “You’ll be sorry!

You’ll be sorry!” (laughs) So we were assigned to [permanent?] type of barracks for the first night, I think it was, and that night, a we had a large number of the recruits in this barracks and you could hear the sniffles throughout the barracks of boys that were homesick and perhaps never been away from home. I wasn’t bothered by that; I was too excited by being there and contemplating the next day, so I wasn’t homesick on that instant. I’d experienced that a number of times later, when returning from home on leave and going back to ship, knowing I’d being going back overseas. That would make me homesick.

But the second day, we started getting out haircuts and started a long series of shots and getting out clothes, and we were given a sea bag and a [DD-bag?] -- a sea bag that would contain all your clothes, a DD-bag was to contain the things that you used on a daily basis like toothbrushes and shaving equipment and so forth, which I had no use for other than a toothbrush, of course, didn’t need any shaving equipment. We changed into

“dungarees,” as we called them, they’re kind of like blue jeans.

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That was kind of a thrill, putting on the Navy clothes for the first time. We were moved into (inaudible) each hut contained,

I think it was about, six double-deck bed so it was about twelve guys in a hut. And we had quite a large number of these lined up and our entire company was housed in these temporary huts.

The company must have been about two hundred people, from Texas,

Cajuns from Louisiana, and some boys from California, and we had a Chief Petty Officer that was in charge of the company. We would have frequent inspections of the huts we lived in and we had bag inspections where you’d have to lay out all your belongings, make sure they were properly rolled and tied-off, all the clothes had to be rolled and you tied them with something I think we called “clothes stops,” they were small pieces of very small rope with metal brads on either end to keep it from uncurling.

So we started off on our routines, which became daily routines, of marching and drilling, running, exercising, that sort of thing. And we’d have frequent watch duty around the camp area there. I had frequent times at twelve to four, or the eight to twelve, and that type of thing. And it got pretty cold there in

San Diego at night, and you’d wear your, I believe it was, dungarees and a watch cap. And if it was cold enough you’d wear

12 your pea coat, which was a navy blue heavy coat and was the only thing we had for cold weather.

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Upon arrival at San Diego, the Navy sent a post card to all the families of the boys and it said, “San Diego, California” and had a date on there: 8th of January, 1943, and it said, “Bobby

Lee Pettit, recently enlisted in the Navy, arrived at this station for preliminary recruit training for services in the

Navy,” and goes on to state what the length of training was and so forth. It said, “Upon the satisfactory completion of this preliminary training, each recruit is enlisted either for assignment in a sea-[going?] vessel, or if considered qualified for a course in the service school, upon the satisfactory completion of the service school course, the recruit then becomes available for sea assignment. The Navy endeavors to provide its men with careful discipline and congenial work and

[healthful?] surroundings and care for their physical and mental and moral welfare. It is requested that official communications be addressed to Commanding Officer, US Naval Training Station,

San Diego, California. Frequently, the cheerful letters from his home are of great benefit to the recruit and they are the best means of encouraging him to write home frequently. Upon

13 the delivery of mail for each recruit will result if addressed to Bobby Lee Pettit, Company 8, US Naval Training Station, San

Diego, California.”

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Then, following the training, the Navy would send another postcard to the parents, and looking at mine, I can see I filled it out April the 5th, 1943. “Bobby Lee Pettit, Seaman 2nd Class, is [at state?] to being transferred and we will notify you of his new address upon arrival at the new station. Please discontinue addressing his mail to the Naval Training Station,

San Diego, California effective immediately. Respectfully,

Commanding Officer.”

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My first letter home to my mother was date January 8th, 1943. It said, in part, “Had a nice trip, but it got sort of tiresome.

We got here 11:00AM and the first thing we did was eat. Then we got our haircuts and a few shots. We also received out sea bags and...” um, something, word I can’t make out there, but [it said?], “blue jacket [manual?] and a lot of other junk. Out eats on the train were very good but they gave us too much, but

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I could always manage to put it away. The scenery was beautiful, especially the snow capped mountains in Arizona. I just got through taking a shower in a nice tile shower.

Tomorrow we receive out uniforms and start to train.” And it goes on to some personal hellos to people. “There’s a Navy band playing outside the barracks now.” It goes on, “Your loving son, Bob.”

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A letter that I wrote on the 10th of January starts off with,

“Dear Mom, Having a good time. I’ve received two shots and a blood test. We got our uniforms yesterday. We’re going to church today. I seen Richard yesterday but could not attract is attention because we were in ranks.” My English wasn’t very good at that stage of things there, but it’s kind of amusing to see how bad it was.

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Early in my days at the Naval Training Station, I filled out an application for an allotment for my mother -- they called it

“Application for Family Allowance.” Well, my mother got this and she wrote the Navy a letter, saying that she did not wish to

15 take that money. The Navy would take some funds from my pay and supplement it with funds from the government and send her a check, since she was pretty much dependent on me when I left home. The Navy sent her a document dated March 31 1943, it said, “Subject: Pettit, Bobby Lee, Apprentice Seaman USNR,

Application for Family Allowance Cancellation Of.” Said, “Dear

Mrs. Pettit, The Bureau has received your recent communication in which you state that you do not desire the benefits to which you might be eligible under the Servicemen’s Dependence

Allowance Act. The Bureau respects your attitude in this matter. Consequently, your son’s application for a family allowance on your behalf in accordance of the provisions above mentioned act. The money deducted from your son’s pay because of this application will be refunded directly to him. This action on your part shows unselfish loyalty to the furtherance of our common cause and demonstrates your devotion to our country. A copy of this letter is to become part of your son’s

Naval record. Sincerely, Randal Jacobs, Rear Admiral, US Navy,

Chief of Naval Personnel.”

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During the course of our training in San Diego, one of the movie studios in Hollywood came to the Naval Training Station to film

16 some scenes for a movie called Destroyer with Edward G. Robinson and, I believe it was, Glenn Ford was the guy’s name. And they needed some sound effects for marching, and our company was chosen to march up and down the grinder there and the movie studios recorded the sound of marching feet. And so, end of the movie Destroyer, Company 438 made the sound effects for it as far as the marching goes.

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I’m not sure whether to mention this or not, but somewhere in the course of our training there, they gave us some aptitude test to see whether we might qualify for schools. I took the test but I didn’t get a school, I was sent to sea instead. I wanted to go to electrician’s mate school, but not having finished the eighth grade, I was a little bit weak in some of the aspects that they were looking for and, I guess, primarily math. So I didn’t get a school. But in the long run it didn’t matter because once I got aboard ship I got the necessary books that I needed in studying and was able to move up to First Class

Electrician’s Mate anyway without the school.

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One day in our training, we were near the San Diego bay and we

looked up and say two P-38s crash together and the pieces of the

plane come floating down. We saw two parachutes coming down and

we heard later that one of the men survived and one of them

didn’t. So that was our first taste of anything related to the

war type of environment.

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Near the end of our training, we moved out of the huts into a

nice permanent type barracks and I got the notice that I was

being given leave -- had five days leave plus travel time. The

cost of the train fare was forty-one dollars and ten cents and I

had only thirty-one dollars, so I sent a wire to my mother to

ask her to wire me fifteen dollars out of money that I had been

sending home. She wired me fifteen dollars, which I received on

March the 20th and went home on leave, was there five days and

had to return back to the train station.

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I returned form the leave and wrote a letter on April the 3rd

1943 indicating that I had gotten back to San Diego, the Naval

Training Station. And in the letter, complained about the hot

18 temperatures going across the desert and indicating that we dipped down old Mexico -- I think the tracks ran down in there along the border somewhere. Then it appeared that getting ready for transfer, I thought I was going to be transferred to the state of Washington, but I was all lashed up and ready to go to bat, and they scratched all the company eight people from that detail. And on the 6th of March we were notified that we were being transferred to San Pedro, California. There were roughly five of us from the company; I think most of the boys were from

Houston in my company. We were transferred up to San Pedro. We caught a train from San Diego up there and it was a normal troop train, I think, and we stopped one time and it happened to be in the middle of an orange grove. We jumped off the train and ran and grabbed a handful of oranges and jumped back on the train and proceeded on to Los Angeles and San Pedro. We pulled into the Naval Receiving Station at about midnight on the -- I don’t know what day it was, probably about the end of April.

We pulled in to the station and one of the guys jokingly said,

“Did George Washington sleep here?” And the driver of the bus we were on said, “No, but Al Capone did.” It turns out that the

US Naval Receiving Station and Naval Operating Base, San Pedro

California was the Terminal Island prison prior to the war. So we were actually in prison; there were bars everywhere and it

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was not too different from being in prison, I guess. I could

look out the windows through the bars and I saw the USS

Pennsylvania battleship lying down near Terminal Island, which

is just off of San Pedro -- there was a ferry around between

Terminal Island and San Pedro. So we were only there a very

short time, and --

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Me and the boys that were in my company were transferred to the

USS Tallulah, which was AO-50, a fleet oiler, on the 9th of

April. The Tallulah, [like I?] say, is a fleet oiler.

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The Tallulah was built as a merchant ship by Sun Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company in Chester, Pennsylvania, had a displacement of five thousand seven hundred and thirty tons light, and loaded, twenty two thousand three hundred and eighty tons. She was five hundred and three feet in length and sixty eight feet to [beam?]. And propulsion was turbo-electric, had a

General Electric turbine that powered the single-screw motor, electric motor, driving the ship. Speed was fifteen knots.

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When acquired by the Navy it had no guns on the ship and, as I remember -- my information here doesn’t show the armament aboard the ship but -- we had two three-inch guns forward and we had twenty millimeter forward and we had twenty millimeters mid-ship and stern, we had some forty millimeters. And on the stern, we had originally a five-oh-five inch fifty-one that was a powder bag type of gun, old style. Then later in San Francisco, that was taken off and we had a five inch thirty eight put on the stern. I’m not sure that that accounting is exactly accurate, but I know we had the two three inches forward and we had two three inchers somewhere else on the ship and I don’t remember exactly where.

But anyway, we [reported?] aboard and then within thirty minutes of reporting aboard the Tallulah, we were underway going out the breakwater headed for south Pacific. My first job assigned on the ship was to take the hoser lines that had, in tying up the ship to the dock in San Pedro, and we had to take these wet lines and coil them down in the forward hole. So I was down there with the other seamen, we were calling these lines up when we passed the breakwater in San Pedro, and I felt this huge surge of the ship up and down and up and down and I said, “Uh- oh.” (laughs) “I’ve got a problem.” Because I started getting sea-sick almost immediately. The water was very rough and I had

21 never been so sick in my life. I had on a life jacket and I was up on deck and, of course, I didn’t know that you had to go to the leeward side of the ship when you throw up, so going to the windward side, throwing up and all the throw up would fly right back in your face and on my life jacket, which was a Mae West type jacket, [k-poc?], and that after a while, the smell of the vomit and the oil and so forth, it was enough to make you sick, let alone the motion of the ship. But I was so sick I wanted to die. I remember the water was breaking over the cargo deck and

I was lying on the deck, just in the water, was hoping I would die. The water was extremely rough. We had taken water inside some of the ammunition rooms that had, I won’t say doors but, hatches on them and they were dogged down and the water still got into some of these areas, it was so rough. I was sick for three days and wasn’t feeling like doing anything, but of course you had to go through the routine and do what you had to do.

And after about the third day, I think the water calmed down and

I started feeling a lot better.

We started having gun drills. The captain had a habit of releasing a balloon from the bridge and then he would call for fire against the balloon. And I hadn’t had a [junk?] orders station or a watch station assigned yet, so I was just observing what was going on. But all the guns cut loose on this balloon.

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I don’t know that we ever hit one of them, but the three-inch guns and the twenty millimeters and forty millimeters cut loose, but like I said, I don’t think we hit one. I later found out that the three-inch guns against a balloon like that or an aircraft were pretty much useless, you could train or point the guns rapidly enough to keep up with the moving target, and if the ship was moving it made it almost impossible to hit anything with those things. If you were firing at a surface ship, yeah, you could probably do some damage, but it was very difficult.

The twenty millimeters was the best defense we had against aircraft and the old five inch fifty one at the outset on the stern was of no use at all against aircraft because it wouldn’t elevate high enough. It was strictly a surface target weapon.

But the twenty millimeter were kind of effective, but even those had short comings if most of the gunners firing the twenty millimeters fired by using the trajectory of tracer bullets.

And every, I don’t know what it was, fifth round or fourth round or something would be a tracer. I don’t think we knew it at the time, but the projectile of a tracer round was a little different from a normal round, so if you’re firing on tracers and you’re on target with tracers, you’re going to be missing the target with all the other ammunition. So I don’t think the

Navy was aware of that, and they didn’t find that out until

23 later, and they made everything non-tracer bullets, then scored more hits.

But anyway, we didn’t need to use the guns. We were headed down to the south Pacific doing a zigzag course, every few minutes we would change the course, and we were all alone out there, sort of a sitting duck for Japanese submarines. If the Japanese patrolled that area that we were in, cut off all the supplies going down to New Caledonia and the Solomons there, the war might have lasted a little longer for them. But we were all alone, no escorts, didn’t even have a radar aboard the ship at that time -- we later got it in San Francisco. But I was amazed after I got over the sea-sickness and was able to look around, I was amazed at the color of the water, it was an indigo blue, just beautiful water. Anytime we were in rough seas, we would take water over the bough and it was interesting to find flying fish on the deck after we had been in rough water. That didn’t occur until we got on down to the gorgeous south Pacific.

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The men who reported aboard with me on the 9 April ’43 was James

Lawrence Henry, Seaman Second Class, Lawrence Najera, N-A-J-E-R-

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A, Seaman Second Class, Filbert Gerome Pena, P-E-N-A, Seaman

Second Class, and Bobby Lee Pettit, myself, Seaman Second Class.

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Shortly out of port -- and this was unbeknownst to me at the time, but -- we found that we had a stowaway aboard, a Joseph

Pardins, P-A-R-D-I-N-S, was a private in the Marine CORP and surrendered himself up as a stowaway on April the 9th. (laughs)

I don’t know what he had in mind doing. He was either trying to get to the battle front or he realized that if he wanted to not get to the battlefront, that was a good way to do it, to stowaway aboard and then you would be taken off somewhere that wouldn’t be the battlefront and probably be put in the brig and that would keep you from going into battle. So I don’t know what his intent was. But anyway, we discharged him at the next port.

We steamed and had drill after drill and on the 11th of April we had a captain’s mass, and it was amazing looking through the log how many captain’s mass we had. Every time we left port, it seemed we had a captain’s mass and sometimes in between. When you leave port you’d always have a number who were AOL or AWOL or some such thing and on the 11th of April, we had general

25 quarters at 6:02AM and then drills and had a captain’s mass.

That was a, I guess, that [summary?] court martial on April the

13th, a John W. O-N-O-L-D-N-E-R, Seaman Second Class had come aboard intoxicated and assault with a deadly weapon.

It was customary while we were sailing alone, we’d have general quarters at sunrise and general quarters at sunset, all guns were manned, and when I finally got a GQ station, it was on one of the three inch guns forward. I was in different positions on there, I was a loader, I was a hot-shell-man -- that you’d catch the hot shells, the big brass casings coming out of the rear of the gun when the gun was fired -- and I was an ammunition handler, and I was fuse-setter, and on occasion I was either a pointer or a trainer, which I wasn’t very good at. When the gun had fired one time, my eyes would seem to water due to the smoke and the sound, the noise, I couldn’t see anything past the first round, so I wasn’t very good at being a pointer or a trainer, which is the people that aim the gun. It was strictly a mechanical thing, nothing electric about it. And the fuse- setters, we had fuse-setters on guns, and I don’t recall whether those were automatic when we set the range on the gun or whether or not the fuses were set manually, but I don’t think we had any proximity fuses, so this complicated the firing of the three inch. If you set the fuse improperly, it would explode ahead of

26 the target or behind the target, rarely at the target. So that was another problem with the three-inch guns and we didn’t have anything to judge range with other than looking out and saying,

“Well, I think that’s about five thousand yards.” And we had a man on the gun that would crank in the range that would affect the sights on the guns. There was a scale on there, too, which moved the sights left or right, so you’d call out a range,

“Five-oh-double-oh, scale four-nine-five,” and this man would set the scale and the range, and it was strictly a guess-by-gosh kind of thing, which made it almost impossible to hit anything.

It’d made a lot of noise and a lot of smoke, but I don’t recall us ever hitting anything.

(break in audio)

Really, it was customary to see other ships. On the 14th of

April we sighted the USS Monongahela, another AO, and we sighted another tanker on the 22nd of April. And we signed island, M-A-

N-U-A Island thirty-three miles on the 22nd of April, and sighted a plane at twenty thousand yards. Then we sighted our destination, which was Tutuila Island, T-U-T-U-I-L-A Island, and this is where the city of Pago Pago was. So we entered the harbor at Pago Pago on the 22nd of April and that’s on the island of Tutuila, T-U-T-U-I-L-A, American Samoa. We moored up in the

27

harbor -- the harbor was an extremely beautiful place. I even

recall after we’d been at sea for three weeks or so, and I

walked out on the deck that morning after we were in port and

looked up and I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. The harbor

was inside an extinct volcano and you could look up and see

mountains all around, the water was clear and blue, and you

could look down and see tropical fish, and all the green coconut

palms around. Unfortunately, we were quarantined -- the ship

was quarantined -- for some reason by the medical officers, so

we never got ashore of that. We put ashore the Marine CORP

stowaway and got rid of him. He was put ashore at the US Marine

-- well, let’s see, what was it? [Put forward?] the transfer to

the US for execution of sentence of a general court martial.

On April the 24th we got underway again and set condition two. I don’t remember what condition two was, but I recall there was a sunken ship right outside the harbor of Pago Pago. I don’t know whether it was one of ours or one of the Japanese, but it was resting on the bottom and was mostly visible above the water.

On the 25th we sighted land and it was probably T-A-N-U-A-L-I-A,

whatever that is. So we were running zigzag planned number

thirty-nine. Soon we sighted land, which happened to be our

next port of call, it was New Caledonia.

28

So we anchored in St. Vincent’s Bay, New Caledonia. We had

carried aircraft on our cargo deck, and these aircraft were

unloaded and we were moored alongside sister ship USS Cimarron.

We transferred oil to the Cimarron. We had a church part go

ashore to the USS Solace, which was a hospital ship. And we had

Liberty in Noumea and this was a French colony and every time

sailors would go ashore on these island ports, they’d usually

come back drunk as a skunk. Liberty party went ashore on the 2nd

of May and a LM [Czerny?] Boson Mate Second Class reported

aboard as a straggler, since January the 25th at twenty-four hundred and was subject to court martial. And we tied up alongside of a number of ships in the harbor there, various merchant ships. There was a large number of the fleet in there and there were torpedo nets around the major ships such as the

USS Saratoga. We came alongside, having to [PT?] one-oh-four alongside for water. We transferred -- I can’t decipher what it is, “AMMS” to the USS Saratoga, I don’t know what that was.

Twenty five cases of ice cream they transferred to the President

Jackson.

Then we were under way for sea, running zigzag plan number twelve, that was on the 3rd of May, and we were headed for the

Fiji Islands, a place called N-A-N-D-A Fiji Islands. We went in

there and were moored and the liberty party went ashore. And we

29 received aboard a seaman, H.G. Grayson, Seaman Second Class aboard for transfer to the US for bad conduct discharge. And underway we had a PUI air coverage, two planes pulling out of the Fijis. On Sunday, May the 9th, we skipped Easter because we crossed the International Date Line, the date changed from May the 10th back to the May the 9th.

(break in audio)

All of the ports of call there, Samoa we went to and New

Caledonia and the Fijis, were in the southern hemisphere so prior to that, somewhere we crossed the equator. And when you cross the equator for the first time, you are initiated into being a “shell-back.” Before you cross the equator you’re a lowly “polliwog.” So we had a big initiation ceremony aboard ship for all the polliwogs. And this was pretty intense initiation. I remember the ship’s crew had built a huge water tank, lined it with canvas or something so it would hold water, and they would throw the polliwogs in there and the shell-backs would be in there and hold you under the water until you think you were going to drown. That was one of the initiations that they had. Then they had some big fat guy with a hairy belly and they rubbed axel grease on his stomach and you had to kiss his belly and he’d grab you behind the neck and pull your face into

30

his (laughs) greased awful-looking belly. And other similar

kind of things like that goes on every time a ship crosses the

equator. So that was kind of interesting. And I was glad when

that initiation was over, and they’d give you a little card

saying that you crossed the equator on such-and-such a date and

you were now a shell-back and no longer a lowly polliwog.

(break in audio)

While underway on May the 19th we had another captain’s mass and two officer’s were -- let’s see, what did they receive? They were charged with conduct unbecoming an officer and were restricted to quarters for a period of ten days, and the offense was that they were playing cards with enlisted men, and the officers were Ensign [Gragsdale?] and Ensign [Burgis?]. On the

21st of May we had a little problem, the engine stopped, we lost

suction on a lubrication oil and got that fixed and resumed

steaming. We sighted a destroyer on the 22nd of May, and we were nearing the Los Angeles coast at the time. We sighted Santa

Barbara and Santa Catalina on the 22nd, entered San Pedro harbor,

and we had one of the higher crew members that was AWOL since

oh-eight-hundred on April the 3rd that was brought aboard under

armed guard, Fred [Wilconson?], Seaman First Class. We started

taking on provisions and loading planes again. We moored at the

31

Shell oil docks in Wilmington, California, and having drills,

like fire drills. Then we got underway on the 25th of May and

crossed the equator for the second time on the 3rd of June, gunnery drills and captain’s inspection, crossed the international date line on the 9th of June, so we skipped June 8th

and sighted Tonga Island, and on the 10th of June, sighted the

USS Woodward, the DD-460. [The?] DD was an escort that was

keeping station about eight hundred yards ahead of us.

(break in audio)

We arrived back in New Caledonia on the 13th of June, liberty

party went ashore (inaudible) by a boat that launched at two,

and recreation party left for the USS Indiana with twenty seven

men for a movie party. We didn’t have a projector aboard the

Tallulah, so that was quite a treat to be able to go aboard one

of the larger ships and see a movie. The harbor was full of

merchant ships and first line Naval ships. We were fueling a

bunch of these, the destroyer number three sixty-five came

along, we went alongside the USS North Carolina, the battleship,

to deliver fuel oil and gasoline. Had a liberty party go ashore

and the movie party left, which was kind of a routine when

you’re in Noumea. We had a captain’s mass on June the 19th,

captain’s inspection also, and we refueled a DD-365 and the USS

32

Fanning, DD-385, and we got underway to come alongside the

British HMS Victorious for fueling her. This was an either

British or Australian aircraft carrier; I forget which. We refueled the USS Saratoga and a movie party left the ship, and the routine types of things of refueling ships and unloading the planes.

On the 25th of June, we got underway, had two destroyers escorting us out, the WS Ream and the [Jates Kincaid?], Erwin R.

Young, and flagship was SINCO, and this was in a convoy --

Tallulah’s guide and convoy commander. We left the port with those merchant ships and we pulled in to Fiji Islands, place called L-A-U-T-O-K-A harbor, (inaudible) Lautoka Viti Levu, Fiji

Islands again. Then got underway again on July 1, sighted the

USS Kitty Hawk. Went through gunnery exercises and captain’s mass, a Coxswain was reduced in rating for assaulting another person in the Navy. We returned back to Los Angeles on July the

16th and then we were underway again on the 16th and went to San

Francisco, moored at pier twenty, had a captain’s mass. On July the 29th I got leave to go home -- a ten-day leave, which I went back to Houston. And we were getting a new stern gun, replacing the old five inch fifty one for a five inch fifty eight, we got some new radio equipment, and we finally got a radar, came aboard from Mare Island. I returned from leave on August the

33

10th. But I was absent over leave since 11:40 of August the 9th, and along with me was a friend of mine, [R.M.?] Huff, Fireman

Second Class, and L. Nadjera, Seaman Second Class, and Filbert

Pena, Seaman First Class. This was due to the train being late.

On August the 12th, I went to a school, thirty one men and two officers left the ship for look out school at Treasure Island.

This was a two day school, they would teach you how to best see in the dark by looking slightly above the horizon and using part of your eye that’s not used so much, that is a little more sensitive to things that are moving. So they’d teach you to look above and move your eyes back and forth, and if there was something there, you could detect it as a moving target, even though the target may be sitting still. And had identification of targets as well, the Japanese aircraft and Japanese ships.

(break in audio)

So from San Francisco, we went to back to San Pedro to get a load of fuel and put some planes aboard. We arrived in San

Pedro on the 26th of August. The shore patrol on the 30th brought aboard a signalman third class, Ratana, R-A-T-A-N-A, delivered aboard by shore patrol intoxicated. We got underway on the 30th, had a captain’s mass on the 30th and 31st of August and one on

34

September the 1st. Various gunnery drills and so forth. Our new radar -- an SA Radar -- failed on September 11th, and just before

we got in to Samoa, Pago Pago Harbor again.

(break in audio)

We unloaded three of the planes that we had brought over; they

were F4U-1 planes. Go underway again to rendezvous with HMS

Viti, V-I-T-I, as an escort and went into Sula, Fijis, Sula

Harbor -- V-I-T-I, Viti Levu, L-E-V-U, Fiji -- and were moored

there.

(break in audio)

On the 18th of September, we were underway again with a sub

chaser five-oh-four as an escort. We got challenged by two

ships and answered the IFF challenge and we entered Noumea, New

Caledonia Harbor, and we fueled a number of ships in the harbor

here. And then on October the 4th, another captain’s mass. Leo

[Mclintock?], Fireman Second Class, failed a [muster?] for

commanding officer’s inspection. He was sentenced to five day’s

bread and water, solitary confinement.

(break in audio)

35

We were underway on September the 23rd and we sighted an object resembling a mine off the port beam, sounded general quarters, and sunk the object, captain’s inspection, then we arrived back in San Pedro.

(break in audio)

After arriving on San Pedro on October the 10th, we were underway again on October the 18th and moving out to head to the New

Hebrides. We sighted a British bomber on November the 2nd, we manned a fueling station -- fueling at sea stations started for fueling at sea, which would be used extensively later on in the subsequent trips. We picked up a destroyer escort one-sixty- six, the USS Baron, for an escort and she escorted us into

Efate, E-F-A-T-E, Island in the New Hebrides. We went alongside the USS Portland, a cruiser, to discharge fuel, and several other ships, the USS Hazelwood, the USS Herman, the USS Bashell,

B-A-S-H-E-L-L, the USS S-E-G-S-B-E C-V. Then we anchored in

Havana Harbor at Efate and fueled a number of ships, including the USS Maryland, the battleship, provided diesel fuel to the

USS Tennessee, a battleship.

(break in audio)

36

We refueled a large number of ships in the harbor, and this was

doing the invasion of the Gilbert Islands, which was where

[Tarawa?] was. And we refueled a large number of ships, and

took on a prisoner from the USS V-O-R-E-A-S, and I think that

was for further transfer to the US. We refueled ships like the

USS Bailey and Frazier, the Z-E-I-L-I-N, Zeilin, the Biddle, the

Bell, the Harris, the Sharedon, Bashell, the USS Ashland, LST,

the USS Millicoma, the USS Mead, the Anderson, the Ringo, the

Russell. On the 13th of November, we went through the torpedo

nets and out to sea again, steaming in the [Solomon?] task force

fifty-three, Trans Div. Six. The USS Russell dropped some depth

charges, and we did some emergency turns for a drill, and then

we started fueling at sea on November the 16th. Fueled the Harry

Lee, the Ringo, the USS Mead, the USS Tennessee, the Bashell,

the Ike, the cruiser Santa Fe, and then we received oil from the

USS [Naisus?], and continuing steaming on the 17th of November, escorted by the USS Katana, K-A-T-A-N-A, Katana. And we entered

Funafuti Harbor, sounded general quarters. We took on stores from the USS Castor, had a swimming party over the side, had movies on the cargo deck. They had somehow gotten a movie projector. And on the 19th we were underway again, escorted by

DE-25. Unidentified aircraft appeared on the port beam, didn’t

respond to IFF and disappeared. We could assume this was a

37

Japanese recognizance plane. Then we started fueling at sea again, to continue supporting the Gilbert Islands invasion. We refueled the Saratoga carrier, the USS Spec, and the Edwards, the Wilson, the cruiser San Diego, the Winston, the Sterett, the cruiser anti-aircraft cruiser San Juan, and the cruiser San

Diego.

On the 21st, we sighted land and sighted a plane that responded

OK to the IFF. We [further?] went back into Funafuti Harbor in the Ellice Islands and held captain’s mass, we had someone who failed to be at his fueling-at-sea stations when he was supposed to. And we took on fuel from the SS White Oak, and fueled DE-25 and took supplies on from the USS Bridge and we were underway again with the USS Schuykill, S-C-H-U-Y-K-I-L-L, Schuykill, AO-

76, and the USS Suanico, S-U-A-N-I-C-O, AO-49, escorted by DE25,

USS Ventolin, DE-28, the USS Emory. We were steaming in task group sixteen point ten point four, manned refueling at sea stations on December the 1st, and fueled at sea the USS [Seavi?], the USS Thomas, the USS Coghlan, USS Emory, [US?] battleship

Indiana, the cruiser Monterey, the USS Black, the USS Walker.

And we were at position, let’s see, longitude one degree, fourteen minutes north, and latitude one seventy three degrees, fifty four minutes east. And this was just below Tarawa in the

Gilbert Islands.

38

(break in audio)

During this operation in the Gilbert Islands, when the fleet was together -- as we were off and on prior to the landings -- I had never seen so many ships. Ships were stretched from horizon to horizon.

(break in audio)

The actual landing on Tarawa was on the 20th of November, and the

Operation Galvanic, G-A-L-V-I-N-I-C, was an amphibious invasion of Tarawa.

(break in audio)

Following the landing, we continued to refuel ships, the USS

Frank, the OSHO provided fuel to us and we transferred that to the USS Emory, which was our escort. She needed some repairs while under escort and reduced out speed to ten knots and she repaired herself and resumed the speed fifteen point three knots. Then we detected some surface craft, sighted four ships, changed courses, changed calls with the USS Independence. Then our escort had a person aboard who developed appendicitis and

39

they asked out doctor, Jackson, for advice and was so advised.

Then we were en route back to the US via Pearl Harbor. We

entered Pearl Harbor on December the 16th, the liberty party was

ashore, and we were underway again on December the 19th and entered Los Angeles Harbor [at?] San Pedro on Christmas Day and was tied up at target repair base, and the liberty party ashore on Christmas, just in time.

(break in audio)

This next trip was to be my final trip on the USS Tallulah. We left San Pedro on the 13th of January 1944 and [accompanied?]

with task force fifty three. A large number of the crew was

missing from the ship and declared deserters from the US Naval

Service. The Tallulah was the guide ship of the task group and

we went into zigzag plan number six, [went?] out of the harbor.

Went through the usual gunnery drills and executed close order

intervals emergency change courses, and fire drills, gunnery

drills, and all sorts of things. On the 18th of January the USS

Elliot came alongside with mail and we engaged in some fueling at sea. And we had a large number of ships that were headed for the invasion of the Marshall Islands via the Hawaiian Islands.

Then, again, we had ships stretching from horizon to horizon.

But that didn’t stop the captain’s mass; we had January the 20th

40 a captain’s mass. Then we pulled into Hawaii at Lahaina, L-A-H-

A-I-N-A, Rose, Lahaina Rose in the Hawaiian Islands. This was just off of Maoi, I believe, and we started refueling some of the ships -- the Donaghey, DE-351, the USS [Rimi?], the USS

Wayne, AP-854, USS Omaha, [PA?]-42, the (inaudible) oiler seventy-eight.

Then the USS Colorado transferred to us five bags of deserters’ personal gear and mail to go to Pearl Harbor. We had some men transfer aboard for further transfer to the Naval hospital number ten, and we had two scarlet fever cases, and the one U-V-

E-I-T-I-S, uveitis, and one internal hemorrhaging case. And we had a PC alongside to receive [deliver?] cruising orders for task unit sixteen point ten point one, and the YMS-286 came along to receive cruising orders and we were underway at six knots and had a captain’s mass. We had [Tippit?], ME Seaman

Second Class, was brought before captain’s mass for shirking duty. He was given five days solitary consignment and bread and water. On the 23rd we were steaming in the company of eight other ships, and entered Pearl Harbor, discharged the sick personnel that we had aboard, and there was summary court martial on the 24th, and on the 25th we were underway to join task group fifty point one seven under condition two-S. We started refueling, fueled the Jenkins, DD-447 on the 28th, and the USS C-

41

H-I-K-A-S-K-I-A -- I’m not sure of that spelling -- AO-54, and the USS Whitman left the task group fifty point one seven.

And on the 30th all hands manned fueling-at-sea stations and we secured our position was latitude eight degrees, forty-eight minutes north, and longitude one seventy nine minutes and twenty seven degrees east, and thirty-forth steaming as before.

(break in audio)

On January 31st, 1944 was the landing on Kwajalein in the

Marshall Islands, and we were steaming as before at the positions that I had previously noted, then refueled the San

Juan, an anti-aircraft cruiser, the USS Cummings, the USS Case, the Langley, the Jenkins, the Radford, the Caliente. We were at position nine degrees and twelve minutes north, longitude, and one hundred and seventy degrees, twenty-two minutes east -- that’s longitude, and I guess we were nine degrees and twelve minutes north, latitude. We pulled into the Marshall Islands and anchored in the [Jeroma?] Atoll and all the islands were pretty much blasted. There was hardly a tree standing anywhere.

We fueled the Portland, the USS Portland, cruiser, the USS Kidd, the USS Black, and our escort, DE-25. On the third week, we refueled the Pensacola and the USS Caliente, the Ramsey, the

42

Caperton, Salt Lake City, the USS [Chain-y?], the USS V-R-A-S-L-

U-I -- I’m not sure of that spelling -- the USS Orrocle, O-R-R-

O-C-L-E, USS Sage, the USS Bullard, the Gatling, USS Erben, E-R-

B-E-N, the USS Preble, the USS Chandler.

(break in audio)

On the 4th of February, we continued to refuel. We refueled the

Abbot, the Hale, the Oakland, the Lackawanna, and on the 5th, we refueled the Greer and pulled alongside the USS Cimarron, and

AO, to transfer fuel to her, and then we moved alongside the USS

Essex to provide fuel. We moved to [the Anchorage?]. We refueled a number of ships inside the harbor.

(break in audio)

Then on, let’s see, the 7th of February 1944, we got underway out

of the [Jeroma?] Harbor, steaming in convoy with the AO-40, AO-

48, AO-71, AO-75, and task unit fifty point one seven point two.

We entered Funafuti Harbor in the Ellice Islands on the 11th, and anchored and took on provisions from the USS Pastores. Then we were underway again, steaming as flagship with task unit sixteen point one eight point seven with the USS [Saugatuck?], S-A-N-G-

A-T-U-C-K, as a guide, that was DE-24, and DE-41 [escorts?].

43

Our position was one degree and two minutes north, and one

hundred and four degrees, seventeen minutes east. The DE was

sent to investigate a surface object and didn’t find anything.

A star-shell was fired in our direction, it was challenge by

objects, and replied, and DE-24 sent to investigate the objects,

and we returned to Majuro Harbor and anchored. The USS

Sullivans came alongside, transferred fuel, and it was on the

20th. And we continued to refuel ships in the harbor, then we

were underway on the 23rd and entered Kwajalein Atoll in the

Marshall Islands on the 24th, and continued to refuel ships

there. Enseign Harry [Burgis?] was confined to quarters for ten

days for [attention?] to duty while AOD, and on the 26th we had captain’s mass again. The USS Kidd, DD-661 came alongside for fuel. On the 29th we had an LCI-439 come along for diesel. And

some other ships, the Casco, the Gazelle, the YNS-388, the

Eaben, E-A-B-E-N, the USS Hale, the Walker. Then we were

underway back to Kwajalein. It was some ships in company, we

entered in Majuro. And we took on some personnel on the 4th of

March for further transfer to the United States, Harry James, CM

2C -- Second Class -- John L. [Millel?], PFC US Marine CORP --

William H. Francis, PFC US Marine CORP -- Robert G. E-G-N-A-S-K-

I-N-G-O or A-S-K-I, PFC US Marine CORP [Cowan?] E. E-S-T-E-S-S,

Estess, PFC Marine CORP, aboard for report for Naval Hospital,

Pearl Harbor. These were personnel that had some sort of injury

44 or disablement during the landings in the Marshalls there. We were underway alongside the Guadalete to refuel the Bullard, the

Kidd, the Case, the [Kraken?], the Murray, the John Taylor, the

General [Warrant?] aboard for transfer. Then we were out of

Majuro Harbor with company of several other ships and we entered

Pearl Harbor on the 13th of March.

I had been quite unhappy with the duty aboard the oiler; I always wanted the destroyer, and I had complained and complained about it and by the time we entered Pearl Harbor, I had been promoted to Electrician’s Mate, Third Class. It was not easy to get released from the deck force to the black gang, which was the engine room gang, but I kind of fought my way out of the deckhands and entered the black gang as an electrician striker.

I studied the books and passed the test for third class and I was complaining all the time about duty aboard the Tallulah -- I wanted to be aboard a destroyer. And the desire was so intense that I volunteered for submarine service, and they told me that

I didn’t qualify, so that shot that down. But it turns out that

I think they were tired of hearing me complain, so when we entered Pearl Harbor, the commanding officer, Commander Jesse B.

Good of the Tallulah was relieved of command by Lieutenant

Commander William F. H-U-C-K-A-B-Y, Huckaby, USNR. And on the

16th, pursuant to comm server on eight serial one-three-five-one

45 of 5 March 1944: “U construction draft number two dash forty- four, Pettit B.L. EM 3C five-seven-six-six-eight-one-three, USNR

B-6 is transferred to receiving ship, Pearl Harbor.” Now that was good, I thought, “Well, here’s a chance. Maybe I can get a destroyer.” But I was headed back to the states for new construction. I boarded a new carrier, the name of which I forget, and was transported to San Diego. And in one of the receiving stations there, I think it was Camp Ellis, I believe,

I’m not sure of that, but it was a Marine CORP camp, of which I was first assigned to. I tried to transfer to the Marine CORP, but I didn’t get very far with that idea. The Navy didn’t want to hear of it, so I wasn’t able to do that, so from that camp, which I believe was something like Ellis, it was on a Marine

CORP campus around there, I was transferred to Balboa Park, receiving station there, to await further transfer. And while there I received leave and came back and reported back aboard to the receiving station at Balboa Park.

This tape is tape two of two, recorded for the use exclusively of Bruce Pettit for his use in preparation for a book regarding the Pacific War, Navy --

(break in audio)

46

Following the leave, while at the Balboa Park Naval Receiving station, I was ordered to report aboard the USS LCI (L) Number-

750. I reported aboard on 1 June 1944 as an Electrician’s Mate,

Third Class.

(break in audio)

The history of the USS LCI-750, was built in the yards of

Commercial Ironworks in Portland, Oregon. The keel was laid the

13th of March 1944 and the vessel was launched 5 April 1944. She was placed in commission 17 April 1944 with Lieutenant JG S.A.R.

White USNR as commanding officer. The USS LCIL earned two battle stars on her Asiatic-Pacific area service ribbon for participating in the following operations: one star, Western New

Guinea Operations 1944-1945, and the Morotai Landing, 11

September 1944 to January 1945, and one star for [Leyte?]

Operations in 1944, Leyte Landings, the 10th of October to the

29th of October 1944, [Pyrmont?] Bay Landings, 7-13th of December

1944. The LCI was stricken from the Naval vessel registration in January 1947 to be disposed of a surplus to the Navy needs.

The overall length of LCI was one hundred and fifty-nine feet, had a beam of twenty-four feet, standard displacement was two hundred and nine tons, [trial?] speed is fourteen point four

47 knots, compliment was eight officers and thirty-two enlisted men, armament was five twenty millimeter anti-aircraft guns.

(break in audio)

When I realized that I was being assigned to an LCI, I was not happy about that because I was wanting a destroyer. But there wasn’t a whole lot I could do about it. I reported aboard the

LCI in San Diego at the south [K wall?], the [para-base?], and I reported aboard with a Clayton John Whitman, Fireman Second

Class. We took on supplies and made repairs and conducted various drills, landing practice and so fort around San Diego.

On June the 12th we took on ammunition, nine hundred rounds of twenty millimeter, three thousand rounds of thirty caliber, one thousand rounds of forty-five caliber, five hundred rounds of twenty-two caliber. And we took on some Navy personnel for transport to receiving station in Pearl Harbor. We were underway on June 15th [for?] Pearl Harbor as part of division thirty-five, group twenty-three, flotilla eight, seventh fleet.

We arrived in Pearl Harbor on the 5th of June 1944 and we had a

SO-8 radar installed -- this was a surface search radar -- and I was sent to school for three days in Pearl Harbor at a secured facility that high fences around, barbed wire, Marine guards, and all the trimmings there, because radar was still pretty

48

hush-hush in 1944. But we managed to squeeze out a few

liberties in Pearl Harbor there before we left.

We departed Pearl Harbor on the 7th of July 1944, and we immediately started drills, man overboard drills, fire drills, flag hoist drills, and so forth. Let’s see, three days in school at Pearl Harbor, departed Pearl Harbor on July the 7th for

Funafuti. The LCI-744 was flag in task group fifty-five point one point sixteen was comprised of the LCI-745, the -746, -748,

-749, a -1014, -1015, -1016, -1017, -1018, -1019. Of course, two thirty five degrees true speed nine point five knots.

(break in audio)

On July the 13th, we crossed the equator and had the traditional

shell-back initiation. And being one of the few shell-backs

aboard, we did the best we could to initiate the polliwogs,

including all the officers. And my contribution to the

initiation was I rigged up an electric chair and all the crew

members were blindfolded -- all the polliwogs including the

captain and the officers -- and we set them down in this

electric chair while they were getting a haircut, so we gave

them all a neat Mohawk-type haircut or worse, and all the time

they were getting this haircut, I kept flipping a switch and

49 shocking them in rear end, and they didn’t know what was going on. They’d jump and squirm and try to get out of the chair, we’d set them back down in the chair and continue cutting their hair and continue giving them a little electrocution.

But on the 15th of July, we had a problem occur that was sort of inherent to the LCI, our steering mechanism failed, electric power steering failed, and then they called me to fix it each time it failed, but it failed on the 15th and I was able to restore operation. We had to revert to manual steering from an

[after?] steering room, which was very compact and close and hot, and being on the stern of the ship, it was bouncing around quite a bit, so it wasn’t a very pleasant place to work and try to repair anything. It failed on the 15th, it failed again on the 16th, and each time I was able to get it to working. And the problem was, it was just a very poor design -- the ship was totally direct current, no alternating current on the ship, and the contact points on the controller kept burning up and I’d take them out, file them down, and put them back in and restore operations for a while until they burned up again.

So we arrived on Funafuti on the 18th and had a liberty party that departed on LSM for movies. Then on the 22nd we sailed from

50

Funafuti to Espirito Santos and arrived -- Let’s see, where did we arrive?

(break in audio)

Espirito Santos is part of the New Hebrides island, we arrived there, as I said, on the 22nd... Arrived on the 26th, actually.

And August 1, we departed Espirito Santos and arrived in

Admiralty Islands, [and] anchored at [Falambrum?] Point on the

8th of August.

(break in audio)

We got underway on the 18th of August for gunnery practice and returned to the harbor and moored up alongside the CVE-27, and we took on a liberty party from the CVE and took them to the beach and then returned the part to the CVE, took on water --

The LCI had no capability of making fresh water as did the larger ships, so we had to get water wherever we could from the larger ships or any place ashore, and sometimes this became a real problem to try and find a source of fresh water.

(break in audio)

51

On August 23rd we took on some Navy personnel for transport to

Finchhaven in New Guinea. On the 25th we beached at [Kreaton?]

Beach A and discharged the passengers and took on one hundred and eighty-five troops and five officers under Captain John

Carr, US Army Commanding Thirty-Third division, Hundred and

Twenty Third Infantry, US Army.

(break in audio)

On August 25, task unit under task force seventy-six was underway with troops aboard, and we joined a convoy formation task for seventy-six headed for Humboldt Bay in New Guinea. We arrived in Humboldt Bay on August the 28th and anchored in

Hollandia Bay, got underway again with the task unit seventy-six en route to Wakde, New Guinea, W-A-K-D-E, New Guinea, with troops aboard. We were fifty-third in the column, we entered

Toma Bay on August the 29th, we beached on Yellow Beach, retracted from the beach and beached to Port of LCI at 10:18 disembarking troops. We were underway back to Humboldt Bay. We arrived in Humboldt Bay on August the 30th and moored in Jautefa

Bay, J-A-U-T-E-F-A Bay in New Guinea.

(break in audio)

52

On September 1, a Commander C.F. Houston, H-O-U-S-T-O-N,

transferred aboard. He was commander of group twenty-three,

brought his staff aboard, and we became flag, and we engaged in

gunnery practice and went to Maffin Bay, anchored in Maffin Bay,

and we had practice in beaching where we took on one hundred and

seventy-six troops and seven officers of the thirty-first

division. And beached and disembarked troops, and beached and

took on troops, and beached and disembarked troops, and this was

in preparation for upcoming landing. We anchored in Maffin Bay.

(break in audio)

September the 9th, we were beached at a supply area in Maffin

Bay, retracted from the beach, beached again, and we lost our stern anchor in retracting from the beach. My job on the LCI, my beaching station, was to drop the anchor going in to the beach and start up a [Chrysler?] engine on the stern of the ship and wind in the cable to the anchor, pulling us off of the beach. And this normally worked quite well.

But on September the 10th, we beached and took on one hundred and

seventy-six troops and nine officers, commanded by Major

Sandwich. We anchored in Maffin Bay, and we were underway on

the 11th of September in a convoy task unit seventy-seven point

53 three point one to the island of Morotai. Now the landings at

Morotai was the first real major step towards the Philippines that lies just below the Philippines, next to the island of

Halmahera. On September the 15th, we approached the objective of

Morotai and beached under attack. We had ships lying offshore that were bombarding the beaches, we were going in, you could hear the large shells whizzing overhead and exploding on the beach. And I think there was a British cruiser in the task group that was putting down heavy bombardment on the beach in addition to the US forces. We approached the landing beach, but we got grounded on a reef fifty yards from where we wanted to be. We retracted from the beach and beached again and disembarked the troops and I was told that, while we were on the beach, General McArthur came ashore right next to us on the 750.

And since I didn’t see it, I always questioned this, but later I looked it up in the Army history books in the Pentagon and it did state that General McArthur went ashore at Morotai. We retracted from the beach and we were underway for a place called

[Sanzafor?]. We arrived at [Sanzafor?] with eighteen LCIs and flotilla eight and anchored. Then we were underway again and at the head of our column, about four thousand yards ahead, we had a P-38 was downed in the water, and the pilot was rescued by a small boat from 8-PD-16 and we were underway to Humboldt Bay,

New Guinea, nineteen LCIs and three escorts.

54

En route, the LCI-578 collided with some unidentified small

craft. We arrived at Humboldt Bay on the 22nd and Lieutenant

Houston and his staff transferred back to LCI-960. On the 27th

of September in Jautefa, J-A-U-T-E-F-A, Bay in New Guinea, we

had a captain’s mass when Henry Stewart, Steward’s Mate Second

Class was reduced in rating to a Steward’s Mate Third Class. On

September 28th, we went out for gunnery practice, and on the 30th we were underway to Cape Sudest, S-U-D-E-S-T. On the 3rd, we

beached at Cape Sudest and took on troops under Captain S.

Sidwell. We were underway to [Orill?] Bay to take on water.

(break in audio)

the troops were of the twenty-fourth infantry division of the

US Army. We landed them at [Pi?] Beach, Humboldt Bay, and we

proceeded to Anchorage in Jautefa Bay, took on ammunition, and

we were underway with task group seven six point six for Leyte

in the Philippine islands. We struck a submerged object on

November the 22nd and jammed out starboard screw. And our port escort on November the 23rd encountered and fired on enemy

planes. We had the usual general quarters at sunset and

sunrise. On the 24th we were proceeding in to Leyte Harbor under

condition red with enemy planes overhead, we were at general

55

quarters, and all the time we were in Leyte harbor, we were

under menacing attacks. For an example, on November the 24th after we got into the harbor, we had general quarters at 0545,

0735, 1110, 1420, 1705, 1803, and 2230.

On the 25th, we were anchored in San Pedro Bay between the

islands on Leyte and Samar. The Japanese planes would come over

Samar where there was a mountain range, and we couldn’t detect

them until they came over the mountain and dropped down on the

fleet. And since then, the entire fleet was at anchor in San

Pedro Bay, and the LCIs were put on the outer perimeter as a

screen, so we were the first to encounter the planes when they

came over Samar into San Pedro Bay and Leyte Harbor near

Tacloban on the island of Leyte. On the 25th we had general quarters at 0530, 1100, 1715, and 2030. One of our primary missions during these air attacks was to lay smoke screens to protect the larger ships, the carriers and the battleships and so forth.

(break in audio)

On the 26th of November in the San Pedro Bay, we went to general

quarters at 1915 and started laying smoke, and our smoke

generator caught on fire. We were sailing around the harbor

56

there with a fire on our stern there, lighting up the whole

fleet, and Frederick William [Bytes?], Motor-machinist Mate

received flash burns. We had general quarters that day at 1100,

1235, 1345, 1520, 1915, and it went like that all the time we

were there, we were laying smoke on the 27th, 28th, 29th, 30th, with general quarters periodically during those periods. When we would have these general quarters, the plane would drop down on the fleet and the whole sky would light up with tracers that looked like a red canopy over the fleet. I don’t know that we ever hit any of them, it’s unbelievable, that. I suppose we did, but I just didn’t see it. But they would come over and you could see the planes because the illumination in the sky was so great. And in addition to laying smoke screens, we were busy firing our twenty millimeters and at that time I was a loader on one of the twenty millimeters and that was my normal general quarters station, being an Electrician Mate. It could have been any engine room, but not so. Had no one on the switchboards in the engine room, just motor [mach?] down there running the engines, so I was freed up to be on the gun crew.

(break in audio)

During one of the attacks, we were out on the screen and a

Japanese plane came and dropped down and happened to come in

57

right over us and one of our gunners saw him and jumped on the

twenty millimeter and opened fire, and that alerted the whole

fleet and then the sky lit up. He flew across us and released a

bomb, which fell harmlessly into the water. On another such

occasion, we had a kamikaze come in and there was a floating dry

dock anchored just to our stern, and the pilot chose that as a

target and plowed through the side of the floating dry dock and,

I think, killed two or three US Navy personnel and, in so doing,

I don’t know why he chose a dry dock when he had carriers and

battle wagons in the harbor, but I think at that time the

Japanese were getting low inexperienced pilots and it was

probably due to this inexperience that this particular pilot

chose to give up his life for a floating dry dock.

(break in audio)

On December the 3rd, we went into a floating dry dock. Whether

it was the one that was hit, I’m not sure. But we went in to

have our starboard screw repaired that we had damaged while

underway and hitting a submerged object. On December the 8th we beached at Tarraguna, T-A-R-R-A-G-U-N-A, Leyte, and we took on troops and they were underway as task unit seventy-eight point three point eight en rout to Ormoc Bay, Leyte. And it was on

December the 9th that power steering failed at 0335 and returned

58 power steering thanks to my work in the after steering room at

0345. We discharged the troops at Ormoc Bay and retracted from the beach and proceeded to the Dulag area of Leyte and then later moved back to San Pedro Bay and back to our general quarters station and laying smoke for the fleet.

(break in audio)

On the 11th of December, we had a captain’s mass for William

Francis [McMygle?], which he was reduced in rating by one rate to a Fireman Second Class and we continued with laying smoke, battling the occasional air attacks coming over Samar.

(break in audio)

On December the 13th, we beached at Tarraguna, T-A-R-R-A-G-U-N-A,

Leyte. Under general quarters, took on troops and we headed back to Ormoc Bay to resupply that activity going on there. We beached at Ipel, I-P-E-L, in the Ormoc Bay and discharged the troops and supplies, and retracted from the beach and were underway. And the power steering failed at 2150, and I got the power steering going at 2230 and we re-entered San Pedro Bay,

Leyte. On the 17th of December, we transferred a George Thomas

[Mackey?], a Gunner’s Mate Second Class to LST-464, it was a

59 hospital ship, and Mackey had undergone some psychological problems and we transferred him to the hospital ship. On the

20th, we continued with the GQ and the smoke laying, and on the

21st of December we had a captain’s mass for Henry Stewart,

Steward’s Mate Third Class, for disobeying orders. He was sentenced to a summary court martial.

(break in audio)

On Christmas Day, we were anchored in San Pedro Bay in Leyte and still undergoing general quarters. ON the 26th of December, I happened to notice the weather that was normally part of the ship’s log and we had a temperature of one hundred and ten degrees. On the 27th of December, an Ensign H.G. [Larson?] USNR reported aboard from the LCI-960 for duty, and we transferred a

Henry [Romald?] Signalman Third Class to the LST-613 for medical reasons. On the 28th of December a Walter H. [Darn?] a Stewards

Mate First Class USN transferred from the LCI(L)-1018 to LCI-715 for duty and on December the 30th, Henry Stewart Steward’s Mate

Third Class transferred to LCI-747 for temporary duty. On

January the 7th, we beached at Samar, S-A-M-A-R, Island, San

Pedro Bay to look for fresh water. There were times we took on water where we could get it, and at times the water was not really fit for drinking, it was red in some cases and full of

60

sand and dirt or mud or something, but it was not very good. We

made sure we took Atabrine to keep them catching malaria. And

while anchored at Samar, our anchor was felled by LCI-749, we

cleared it and got off the beach. We had a hurricane about that

time and we ran up into Jaunico, J-A-U-N-I-C-O, Strait, which

was a narrow passage like a river that ran between the island of

Leyte and Samar, and it was a rather severe hurricane. I don’t

think it was in this one, but in one particular storm, the storm

got so bad that the LCIs were leaping clean out of the water

when they would go over the crest of the wave and be spinning.

You could see daylight underneath the flat bottom boats. And on

such an occasion, we cracked a deck -- our main deck -- and

water was leaking into the troop compartments below as a result

of that. On the 23rd of January, we took aboard a John Lawrence

[Drugan?], a Gunner’s Mate Second Class, transferred from the

USS Blueridge [Bay GC?] for temporary duty. We moved to

Tarraguna Beach and anchored on the 26th of January, and on the

27th, we took aboard troops -- one hundred and seventy nine and

six officers -- of the 11th Airborne Infantry US Army, under

Captain Malcolm [Stafford?]. Then we were underway out of San

Pedro Bay to Luzon in task unit seventy-eight point two point

three, and undergoing general orders at 1055 and 1900.

61

On January the 31st, we arrived at our objective, which was

Nasugbu, N-A-S-U-G-B-U, on Luzon Island, and we were off of

Harrietta Bay waiting for the bombardment of the beach to end.

We had destroyers and LCI rocket ships and A-20 aircraft

bombarding the beach at Nasugbu. And we moved with a thousand

yards of the beach [in?] ready to disembark troops and we ceased

the bombardment and we took the troops ashore and disembarked

and we retracted from the beach and headed for Mindoro Island in

the Philippine islands. The 11th Airborne that we discharged on

the beach there at Nasugbu -- I think, I’m not sure of this

fact, but -- Nasugbu is just outside of Manila Harbor near

Corregidor. I think those troops went on over and participated

in the liberation of Manila, but that fact I’m not totally sure

of.

But we arrived at Mangarin Bay in Mindoro on the 1st of February,

and while at this location, the 5th Air Force, the Jolly Rogers heavy bomb group, was heading out of Mindoro and we were beached for a period of time between operations. And I went over to the airstrip and got acquainted with some of the Air Force personnel and was able to get a ride on a B-24 on a practice bombing run, which was kind of exciting because I’d never been in a plane before. But I just walked up and down the line as the planes were getting ready to take off on the bombing practice run and

62 found somebody that said, “Hop aboard,” so I jumped in and we took off. And we got over the target and I was just aft of the bomb bay and I was just standing there, watch these (laughs) bomb bay doors open and somebody handed me a parachute and said,

“You better put this on. No telling what we might run into.”

They started releasing the bombs and that was a sight to behold.

I saw the bombs fall from the bomb bay where I was standing aft of and fall, fall, fall clean out of sight and then an explosion would occur way up ahead of where you last saw the bomb falling, and I could just imagine falling like that myself, so I told these guys, “I don’t need a parachute,” (laughs) “There’s no way I’m going to ever jump out of this thing if it goes down, however high (inaudible), but I’m not falling like those bombs are.” So that was interesting [side-light?], but got to know the Air Force people pretty well. And we were -- I particularly was -- running out of clothes aboard the LCI, we hadn’t been able to buy anything; everything was wearing out. So some of the Air Force guys got me some Air Force clothing and I found an old shirt in a rag bag that I was able to wear. And it was certainly not military uniform, it was a striped shirt, and I wore that for some time until I got some proper Navy clothes, but I still have that shirt. It’s still in pretty good shape.

(break in audio)

63

The Air Force site -- I don’t know if I mentioned it or not --

but it was the 5th Air Force heavy bomb group, and they called

themselves the Jolly Rogers and they flew B-24s. And at that

time, they were bombing island up north of the Philippines. I

forget the name of the island now; they changed the name of the

island after the war. But on the 17th of February, we had a

summary court martial for Henry Stewart, who seemed to be

constantly in trouble. On the 28th we beached at Blue Beach to take on troops -- took on one hundred and ten men, six officers of Company D 121st Infantry, 4th Division under command of

Lieutenant Warren N. [Macnomarrel?] and we were underway in task

unit seventy-eight point nine point seven en route to Lubang

Island.

(break in audio)

On the 1st of March we approached out objective at Lubang and the

escort vessels began shelling the beach. And we stood of off

Port T-I-L-I-C, Lubang -- Port Tilic, Lubang, Philippine islands

-- while the bombardment was going on. They were firing from

Naval vessels and A-20 bombers began bombing the objective area.

Then upon completion of that, we moved in, hit the beach, and

disembarked the troops at Port Tilic. We retracted from the

64

beach and anchored and then got underway back to Mindoro. On

March the 2nd we anchored in Mangarin Bay, Mindoro, beached at

White Beach on the 7th to take on troops, and we were en route to

[Mangarin?] Bay -- from Mangarin Bay to Lubang Island again. On

March 9th, we discharged troops at Port Tilic in Lubang and we

retrieved troops and go underway back to Mangarin Bay on

Mindoro. We beached at Blue Beach and discharged these troops,

and on the 9th of March we got underway under penalty to

Marinduque Island. We beached at Laylay, L-A-Y-L-A-Y,

Marinduque Island, M-A-R-I-N-D-U-Q-U-E.

It was at this time that Henry Stewart went ashore and got in

some difficulty with some Army troops and they sent a message

back to the ship that, “If you want this black fellow alive,

you’d better come and get him because we’re going to kill him.”

We dispatched Lieutenant J.G. Bradley to go bring him back to

the ship. So he came back and did not want to board the ship,

and Lieutenant Bradley had a side arm on and he was telling

Henry Stewart to get aboard up the ramp leading to the beach,

and Stewart didn’t want to obey and Bradley said, “I’m going to

give you three to get up there, otherwise I’m going to kill you

right here.” And so all the ship’s crew was up over the landing

ramp watching down on this and (laughs) we were all wondering

what was going to happen when he got to three. He started to

65 say three and then pulled out his side arm and Henry turned white and went up the ramp. But he was charged with resisting arrest, attempting [to distract?] a superior officer, and the use of abusing an obscene and threatening language to a superior officer. So he was taken prisoner and placed in solitary confinement for safety of the ship. And we were underway from

Marinduque to Tablas, T-A-B-L-A-S, Island.

(break in audio)

We were anchored in Tablas Bay, and on the 11th of March we rendezvous with a convoy on the way from Tablas Bay to Samara --

I don’t know whether that’s Samar Island or -- It’s spelled S-

I-M-A-R-A and S-A-M-A-R-A, two different ways in the ship’s log.

I’m not sure exactly where that was. But on the 12th of march we disembarked troops into [Elsiem?] and we were underway from this

“Sasmara” back to Mangarin Bay, Mindoro, and arrived in Mangarin

Bay on the 13th of March. Henry Stewart was taken ashore under guard to the Naval base and we were beached at Mangarin Bay. On the 14th of March we received at Blue Beach, took on supplies and rations for transport underway to Port T-I-L-I-C, Lubang.

We arrived at Port Tilic on the 16th of March and we moored to a pier. We took on eight bodies of Army personnel to be taken

66 back to Mindoro for burial. En route from Port Tilic to

Mindoro, we encountered some rough water and the bodies were in pine boxes and the weather was rough and the ship was bouncing around, these boxes started to come apart and started leaking fluids out onto the deck and the smell was bad. The bodies were stacked on the well deck forward of the mess hall, and the odor came floating back to the mess hall, so it was pretty difficult to eat in the mess hall there as long as we had the bodies aboard. But on the 17th of March, we beached at Blue Beach in

Mindoro. Army personnel came aboard to retrieve the bodies and some Japanese equipment that we had. Then we were underway back to Mangarin Bay. On the 19th of March an Elmer [Dale Deardar?]

Fireman First Class was received aboard for LCI-960 for permanent duty.

(break in audio)

Also on the 19th of March, out chief Motor-machinist Mate,

Marshall Ford [Toley?] was transferred to LCI-960 for permanent duty. On the 20th we were underway to White Beach on Mindoro and took on one hundred and sixty-seven troops, consisting of six officers of the 24th Division of the 8th Army. We were underway in task unit seventy-eight point nine point seven en route to

Calapan Bay on Mindoro Island, that’s C-A-L-A-P-A-N. On the 21st

67 of March, we beached at T-A-K-L-I-G-A-N, Takligan, Calapan Bay,

Mindoro, and disembarked troops, and we retracted from the beach and were underway back to Mangarin Bay. We beached there, took on water, and anchored at [Bubu?] Point. On the 28th of March we were underway in formation from Mangarin Bay to Lubagn. We moored there and then went underway for Blue Beach, Mindoror.

On the 30th of March we beached at Blue Beach and discharged troops and were underway to Calapan Bay in Mindoro, and moored at Calapan Bay, Mindoro. We took aboard one hundred and nineteen men, six officers, 24th Division, 34th Infantry.

(break in audio)

We took the troops to Mangarin Bay, Mindoro and arrived at Blue

Beach and discharged the troops and proceeded to beaching a Bubu

Point, Mindoro. On the 8th of April, Fireman First Class Dennis

William Gardner was transferred to US Army Station Hospital number thirteen, APO-321 for emergency appendectomy. On the 9th of April we left Mangarin Bay underway to Cuio, C-U-I-O, Island,

PI. On the 11th of April we took on a load of one hundred and fifteen Filipino workers and took them back to Mindoro. On the

13th of April, we had orders to half-mast the colors in reverence to the death of President F.D. Roosevelt, and on the same date we were underway to Pagalasan, P-A-G-A-L-A-S-A-N, Mindoro, and

68 we were beached there. Then we left Mangarin Bay, Mindoro, beached at Bubu Point on April the 18th and Joseph [Lloyd?]

Radioman Second Class, Fred [Bytes], Motor-machinist First

Class, and John Samuel [Lengfield?] Chief Cook transferred to

NABU-7 for medical treatment.

19th of April we were underway through I-L-L-I-N Strait, and beached at Mansalay, Mindoro, and unloaded provisions and were underway for Mangarin Bay, Mindoror and beached there.

(break in audio)

It was a lot of beaching and moving around from here to there.

April the 29th, Gardener, Lloyd, and Bytes returned to the ship from the NABU-7. On the 3rd of May we beached at B=U-L-A-L-A-C-

A-O, Mindoro and took on one hundred and seventy-four troops of the Philippine Army. They came aboard under Major Garcia. We were underway to Calapan, Mindoro, and we discharged the troops there. And we were underway to B-U-L-A-L-A-C-A-O, Mindoro, beached and took on Filipino troops, and were underway to

Mangarin Bay, Mindoro, and discharged the troops there. Took on supplies and two members of the Filipino Army for transport to

Calapan, Mindoro, and two officers and seven troops of the US

Army on board for transport, and three officers and thirty-two

69 troops to the Philippine Army on board for transport. And we were underway through I-L-L-I-N Strait to Mansalay, Mindoro.

Then on underway to Calapan.

(break in audio)

On May the 18th, we were underway to Lon Lon, Philippine Islands.

We moored to a wharf and disembarked troops of the Philippine

Army. And on May the 19th we took aboard three Japanese POWs for transport to San Jose, Mindoro under guard of the Philippine

Army Military Police. We had a Philippine civilian aboard our ship that rode with us and served as a translator on occasions.

And when the Filipinos brought the Japanese prisoners aboard, this Filipino that was riding with us just jumped on them and started attacking them and beating them and we had to pull him off of the prisoners. Then we left and went back to Mangarin

Bay, Mindoro, and discharged the prisoners to Army Military

Police.

(break in audio)

Through the latter part of May and into early June, we were moving around through the Philippines, moving personnel and

70

supplies. On the 10th of June we entered dry dock AFD3 for hull repair and came out of dry dock on June the 12th.

(break in audio)

On July the 6th we had a [new mine?] UMA Dell Mills, Gunner’s

Mate Third Class transfer to the -750 for duty. John Lawrence

[Drugan?] Gunner’s Mate Second Class transferred to Fleet

Gunnery School, Naval Repair Base, San Diego. We took on fresh

provisions from the USS Marley, and on the 9th of July we

transferred in Ensign Merle Edward Driver to LCI-547 for duty.

On July the 10th we departed San Pedro Bay in Leyte en route to

Pearl Harbor with LCI flotilla eight, division forty-five. And

we proceeded with the drills and on course zero-nine-two true.

We arrived at Ulithi, U-L-I-T-H-I, Harbor in the Caroline

Islands to take on fuel from the AO-186. Then we were underway

to Pearl Harbor with the usual drills. On July the 22nd we arrived at Enewetak Harbor in the Marshall Islands, took on fuel, then we were again underway to Pearl Harbor, arrived at

Pearl Harbor on August the 5th and tied up at West Loch, Pearl

Harbor. Our Captain, Lieutenant S.A.R. White was detached from the ship and Lieutenant JG L.M. Collins assumed command -- he was formerly the executive officer. On August the 8th, we were

underway to San Diego.

71

On August the 14th, our log read, at 1500, “Official VJ Day, war

with Japan is over.” On August the 18th we took departure for

San Pedro, California, as column leader of division forty-five in company with the group twenty-three and twenty-four of LCI flotilla eight under command of C.F. Houston, Lieutenant

Commander. On August the 19th, we sighted land, formed a single column, received a pilot aboard, proceeded into San Pedro Bay, and anchored in San Pedro Bay, Naval Operating Base, Terminal

Island. And on August 28th, we were underway to ammunition

docks; all ammunition was discharged and underway to Anchorage.

On August the 29th, a number of men departed on leave to expire

at 0800 on 24th of September 1945. Hanson, Harold Douglas,

Seaman Third Class, [McBernie?], James William, Motor-machinist

Mate Third Class, Hanson, George Albert, Seaman First Class,

Pettit, Bobby Lee, EM First Class, Gardener, Vincent William,

Fireman First Class, Barton, Charles [Leader?], Seaman Second

Class, Wade, George Norman, Quartermaster Second Class, and

Jensen, John Edward, Forman’s Mate Second Class, [McMonocle?],

William Francis, Seaman First Class, [Macnomera?], John Joseph,

Boson Mate Second Class, [Darn?], Walter Williams, Steward’s

Mate First Class, Mills, [Newman Dale?], Gunner’s Mate Third

Class, and Whitman, Clayton John, Fireman First Class. And we

discharged fuel.

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At that time, I was an Electrician’s Mate First Class, I came aboard the LCI as an Electrician’s Mate Third Class, and I had difficulty finding the necessary books for First Class and

Second Class. And while we were in the islands, I scoured every island we came to in the electrical shops to try to find the books that I could study, along with the test that I had to pass to be promoted from Electrician’s Mate Third Class to Second

Class to First Class. I finally, through diligence, found some books at a Navy repair base on some island -- I don’t remember which -- and turned them over to my engineering officer and I used the books to study for Second Class, passed the test, and I had to wait nine months to get First Class. So it was somewhere around the Pearl Harbor, so that my nine months had elapsed, and

I took the test for Electrician’s Mate First Class, and passed that, so arrived back in the states as a Electrician’s First

Class and had to sew more stripes onto my sleeve, because I was

Third Class when I left the states.

(break in audio)

After reporting back aboard on September the 24th from leave, most of the crew was transferred off to receiving station, San

Pedro, California. And we took on a new commanding officers,

73 the Captain L.M. Collins, Lieutenant JG was relieved of command and a Simmons, I believe his name was, a C.A. Simmons,

Lieutenant JG relieved Lieutenant JG Collins as commanding officer on September the 25th, and most of the crew was transferred of the ship at that time.

(break in audio)

On October the 7th, the remaining crew including myself was underway to San Francisco. We arrived at San Francisco on the

9th and we moored alongside the USS Wisconsin and then moved to

North Pier, Treasure Island, California. After returning from leave, I started thinking about, just sitting around out here in

San Francisco Bay doing nothing, “I need to get back home to go to school.” So I didn’t have enough points for discharge, but I felt like I was wasting my time sitting in San Francisco Bay doing thing and got to thinking of what kind of ways I could get out and get back to school. So I had some letters back and forth to my mother and I had suggested to her that, first of all, that she might write and send my birth certificate to my commanding officer. And I thought better of doing that, I just later sent a letter to her saying, “Just send me my birth certificate.”

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So when I received the birth certificate, I went to my commanding officer and presented it to him and told him that I was only sixteen years old and even though I was First Class

Electrician’s Mate and had served almost three years in the

Navy, I was not yet old enough to be officially a member of the

United States Navy. So he was sort of taken back and said that he would consult the powers to be on Treasure Island. And I told him that I wanted this kept very confidential, I didn’t want any of the crew under any circumstances to know about this.

He consulted with people ashore and it resulted in, on October the 29th, at 1755, the log reads that, “Pettit, Bobby Lee, EM

First Class transferred to receiving barracks, Treasure Island.”

So I was off of the ship and no one was really aware as to why I was leaving the ship, with the exception of the captain.

(break in audio)

My letters indicate that the primary reason for my wanting to be discharged was to go back and finish high school. And at the time I joined, I hadn’t even finished junior high, so I’d have to finish high school and possibly some of junior high school, and then go to college. I knew pretty much what I wanted to do,

I wanted to study electrical engineering, and that was my goal and that was my primary motivator for getting out. Had it not

75 been for that, I might have just stayed in. There was discussions of that in my letters that if I couldn’t get out, I would just wait my turn into I got sufficient points to be discharged on points. But it turns out I didn’t need to do that, so I was on to Treasure Island awaiting further transfer to Houston.

(break in audio)

At Treasure Island, I shortly got orders to report to Camp

Wallace, Texas, which was a separation center. This was an Army base in the vicinity of Houston and Ellington Field. I think it was a temporary base at the time. So I, along with a rather large number of other Navy personnel, boarded a troop train headed for Houston, and -- this was out of San Francisco -- and endured the usual long boring trip that took about three days between west coast and Houston. I arrived there and was delivered to Camp Wallace and I didn’t know what my situation was going to be, I didn’t know what my orders read or how they read, but I was really hoping that I would just go through and get a discharge and there would be nothing said about it. I didn’t want anybody to know what the circumstances were. So I was just hoping that I would move through with all the guys that

I came on the train with, and I didn’t want anything different

76 than what they got. Well, everything was going fine for a day or so, then I was lined up with a bunch of the guys, we were lined up to get our [mustering?] out physical. We’d already taken our dress blues and had the [ruptured duck?] signifying discharge veteran sewed onto our lapel. And all standing in line waiting for the physical, an enlistment man came down the ranks looking for Bob Pettit. And I said, “I’m he.” And he said, “Follow me, the Lieutenant wants to talk to you.” I said,

Oh god, here it comes.

I was dreading that. So I went up to the Lieutenant’s office, and he had my orders in front of him, and he was very nasty, very irate that I had lied about my age to get in the service, and he cussed me up one side and down the other, and told me that he couldn’t give me a discharge. All he could give me was a piece of letterhead paper saying that I had served for two years, ten months, and some odd days and had achieved the rank of Electrician’s Mate First Class and that my enlistment was being declared null and void. That was disastrous, because I knew that it would mean that I would have no GI Bill of Rights, and no educational rights, no mustering out pay or anything.

They just wanted to dump me out and that was the end of it. So

I told him, “Let me go home,” and he said, “OK, but I can’t let you go in that uniform.” And I said, (laughs) “You want me to

77 go naked? This is the only thing I’ve got to wear. This is a uniform I paid for and I don’t think the Navy has any right to it.” And he said, “Well, wear the uniform home and send it back, and all your other clothes, everything in your sea bag and so forth, turn it over to the shore patrol.”

So I had things in my sea bag that I would like to have kept,

I’d like to have kept my clothes, my uniforms were there, my whites, had a nice Navy jacket in there, and a number of things that I would have loved to have kept. But I told the guard or shore patrol, whatever he was, that I’ll give you this jacket if you’ll drive me out to the gate. Camp Wallace was located in the flat prairie down between Galveston and Houston and it was out kind of in the middle of nowhere, as I remember. So he said, “OK, I’ll drive you out to the gates.” So he drove me out to the gate and I got out of the truck that I was riding in and started hitchhiking on into Houston. They gave me a piece of paper that told me to report to my residence.

(break in audio)

This was in the form of a standard transfer order and it was dated 7th of November 1945, and it says “US Naval Personnel

Separation Center, Camp Wallace, Texas. Authority [per his?]

78 letter, per 66-HEB-P14-4 of 22 August 1944 to Pettit, Bobby Lee,

Electrician’s Mate First Class, 5766813-USNR.” And it says, “If in charge of draft, indicate name,” and so forth, and it says,

“None.” And it says, “Proceed as your transportation may direct and report as indicated below. Ultimate destination and nature of duty to your residence of record, Houston, Texas, upon cancellation of enlistment for reason of enlisting when under fourteen years of age.”

(break in audio)

So I arrived home with no discharge and I thought, “I’ll go to college some way.” And while I still had my uniform on, within a day or so of arriving at home, I went to answer and unemployment ad that happened to be with Western Electric

Company. I had an interview with a gentleman and, mind you, I was still in uniform, and told him my story and what my experience was and so forth. He said, “Well, we’d really like to hire you, but the problem is, we can’t prove that you’re in the service, we can’t prove that you’re out of the service, and so our hands are kind of tied in regard to being able to hire you.” I said, Jiminy Christmas, I got a problem that’s probably bigger than what I’d thought I had.

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So I went back home and I discussed it with my uncle, Doc

Pettit, who was a World War I Navy veteran. He said, “Why don’t you go down to the servicemen’s center?”

(break in audio)

I think the organization was called Country Service Center. I talked to a friend of the family, his name is Jesse L.

[Cabniss?], he’s the county service officer. Cabniss was a friend of my uncle’s and the family by virtue of having gone to the same church in Houston. So I went down to see Mr. Cabniss and told him what had happened to me, and he was very irate that the Navy would do this, and he got busy and he wrote a letter to the Navy Bureau of Personnel dated November 13th 1945. It said,

“Attention Enlisted Personnel Division,” and he cited the story and he said, “I believe that enlisted of the Army or the Navy or any other branch of the armed forces is proud of an honorable discharge from [either?] branch of the service. Therefore I’d like to request that I be advised whether it is possible for this man to receive an honorable discharge instead of just an ordinary piece of paper, which shows nothing except the dates of his entry into the service and he served continually under honorable conditions. The young man feels quite badly about this type of discharge and I feel that he should have an

80 honorable discharge. Please advise me by return mail what the

Navy’s policy is with reference to this type of discharge.”

And in addition to that, he notified all the newspapers and our congressman, who at the time was Albert Thomas of [the?]

Houston. The newspapers flocked on this story, and spread the story nationwide and Albert Thomas was very interested in it, took it to the Chief of Naval Personnel. As a result of the newspaper ads, I was getting calls from people everywhere, and mostly young girls, and some gentlemen as well, elderly gentlemen. I even got money from groups of people saying, “The

Navy’s not going to send you to college; maybe we can help and would put in that money.” And I couldn’t walk down the street, hardly, without people recognizing me and stopping and talking to me. I was invited to a play that was called “Snafu,” it was playing at the Houston Haley Theatre, and it happened that the story that was the theme of their play happened to be something along the lines of my real life experience. So I went to see that as their honored guest, and they invited me backstage after the play and wanted to know if I’d be interested in trying out for parts, and I said, “No, thank you.”

It took a little while there, and there were ongoing stories in the paper as to what the status of the situation was. And when

81 the news hit Houston, I got a call from a couple of oilmen in

Houston. They asked me to come down to their office, which I did, in downtown Houston. They said, “Look, we’re very proud of what you did and if the government doesn’t come through with the

GI Bill,” he said, “don’t worry about it. We’ll see that you go to college.” So I thought that was great. They took a definite interest in my situation. It took a little while and I started getting some feedback as to what was going on.

(break in audio)

BP: On the 23rd of November, I got a telegram from the congressman Albert Thomas, and he says, “I’ve taken your case up with Navy department and they have promised to do something about it. Feel sure they will. You are entitled to all the benefits and I am glad to cooperate. We are all proud of you.

Regards, Albert Thomas.”

(break in audio)

Then on November 29th, I got another telegram from congressman

Albert Thomas that said, “[I’m] mailing you honorable discharge certificate signed by Vice Admiral Louis E. [Dinfield?], Chief of the Bureau of Naval Personnel, together with honorable discharge button and honorable service lapel button. Glad to

82 cooperate at all times. Regards, Albert Thomas.” So with the help of Congressman Thomas and Jesse [Cabniss?], I was able to get what I felt I was entitled to. But otherwise, the situation would have been a little more difficult, having to go through college on my own. So being back home, I started to high school, just regular classes, and they had special classes for veterans during the day, and I went to that for a while and it was kind of unique. (laughs) Although there were other veterans, all the girls and so forth kind of singled me out and

I got a lot of attention just trying to be a regular student.

They had a write-up in the high school paper about me.

Then I realized I was using up too much of my GI Bill going to school in the daytime, so I quit the daytime classes and enrolled in the evening classes and got a job with the Houston

Lighting and Power Company. I would work during the daytime and go to school in the evening. That was working out pretty well.

So I continued that for about three years and graduated from high school in 1948, and started considering where I wanted to go to college. Well, the seeds that were planted way back in the year before the war, so when my uncle took me to Texas A&M, those seeds started to bear fruit and I went to a college station to visit the campus of Texas A&M. At the time it was called Agricultural Mechanical College of Texas and the

83 enrollment was about six thousand, all-male, all-military, and it seemed like the place for me. I did consider the University of Houston and the University of Texas, but thank god I chose to go to Texas A&M.

I started in the fall of 1948 and I chose not to be in the CORP of cadet, because having been a veteran, the CORP was not compulsory as it was for other students. So that gave me more time to study and, taking electrical engineering, I needed all the time I could get. I went through the four years there and graduated with a BS in electrical engineering in May of 1952.

(break in audio)

After graduation, I had a number of offers of employment and just coincidentally, the offer that I accepted was with Western

Electric, the company that couldn’t hire me when I first got out of the service because I didn’t have a discharge. I worked for perhaps a different group in Western Electric than I had first interviewed, but the job that I chose was one as a field engineer working with Western Electric in helping to install, instruct, and maintain their rather complex gunfire control systems, radar gunfire control systems, aboard Navy vessels. So

I went to training at Bell Labs, a developer of this equipment,

84 which was far more sophisticated than what we had in World War

II. It was automatic tracking radar that directed the guns on the ship, the anti-aircraft guns and the surface batteries for the big sixteen-inch guns. And most of my time was spent working on the anti-aircraft type of guns.

My first assignment was at Norfolk Naval Shipyard, and then I was assigned to Mare Island Naval Shipyard in California. In both places I taught classes as well as worked on the ships, helping the civil service employees getting this equipment installed and operating properly. I taught school at both shipyards to sailors, fire control technicians who came off of the ships, and also to Western Electric engineers. I was sent to the Mediterranean with the sixth fleet, and I spent six months there going from ship to ship, making sure all the equipment was functioning properly. We were at sea a lot and, again, the old friend sea-sickness followed me along. But it was a real great experience. I got to hit many of the ports along the Mediterranean area and met a lot of good Navy people.

When my tour of duty was over, I came back to Norfolk Naval

Operating Base and continued to assist the civil service people and the Navy personnel in getting this equipment installed and operating properly. And having taught school on the equipment,

85

Western Electric sent me to their office in Washington to work with the Bureau of Naval Personnel in writing training manuals for Navy instructors to teach this equipment. So I spent time there writing the manuals and taking them out to the Navy training schools and introducing them to the instructors who would be using the material to teach students. So that was a very enjoyable assignment.

I stayed there about five years, and in [1957?] -- I believe it was -- I got the desire to return home to Texas, and took a job with a company that was called Southwestern Industrial

Electronics, later bought out by Dresser Industries and became

Dresser Electronics. They were primarily in oil well servicing, building equipment to record oil well expirations, sonic types of signals that they received from exploding dynamite in holes in the ground, and being able to pinpoint where the oil was. So that was somewhat satisfying, but I missed the military end of the business and left that company and went with Texas

Instruments and moved to Dallas, and was hired on as a design engineer working in space craft telemetry. I designed some of the equipment that went aboard the Saturn launch vehicle in the telemetry equipment area.

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From there, I went a number of places, which is not probably pertinent to your story. But I ended up retiring from Texas

Instruments after having worked for the likes of Boeing Computer

Services, [Burrows?], and a small company called Scope

Electronics. Then I decided I’d really like to go back to Texas

Instruments so that it would afford me the opportunity to get back to Texas frequently. So I went back there and retired from

Texas Instruments in 1991 and have been pretty much retired since then. I did work with another Dallas company for a period of time, but have been living in Leesburg, Virginia since I returned in 1991 and I have a small horse farm here, which keeps me busy. I piddle around with some other business on a low- level basis. But that’s about the end of my story.

At listening to this, it all sounds quite boring to me, so I don’t know what you can pull out of this that will be of any benefit to you and your book, but if you should find a nugget here and there and you have questions about it, don’t hesitate to give me a call. I’ll be happy to try to answer your questions, and I have tons of documentation to back up anything that you listen to on this tape. So my phone number is 703-771-

1510 and my email is [email protected]. So give me a call,

Bruce, if I can be of any assistance to you. If you finish with the tapes or find nothing on there that you can use a little,

87

I’d appreciate your sending them back to me. Send them to 19874

Evergreen [Mill?] Road, Leesburg, Virginia, 20175. And I would be interested, when you publish your book, let me know what the title finally turns out to be and I’ll be sure to purchase a copy of it. OK, Bruce, hope this is of some help. This is Bob

Pettit, signing off.

END OF AUDIO FILE

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