Liberty On the Atoll
We had liberty on one of the islands that formed the
rim of this volcanically rimed harbor. There wasn't
much to do except look for shells, starfish and other
sea life.
When the tide was out, it left a number of yellow and
gray centered cowry shells that we made into jewelry. One
time I ran into some Seabees that had found a coconut
crab with it's vice like claw that could open a
coconut. I remember that during that time the flies were a problem;
they looked like
the house flies at home. There were the ants I
described earlier and some
big beetles. We made our own Plexiglas bottomed buckets to see
the shells in the water. Once in a while, natives in
outrigger canoes would pass by and disappear into the
open sea. We had plenty of work to do keeping the
ships ready for action with the fleet. Whenever
possible, we found things to do to keep us from going
'buggy'. We had an endless pinochle game going in the
print shop. It was single deck, penny a point and
dealer takes no bids. We settled at payday and kept
losses down. Crap games were going on after taps in
certain areas of the ship as well. We also had our
music. I and several others played the harmonica. Frank Kuhorich gave lessons. We
also had classical music from several who had bought
albums and record players in Pearl. At times we sang
to ragtime piano. As I described, we made necklaces
and bracelets with sea shells we had collected. Some
were pretty good but they had a strong odor for some
reason.General Quarters at Movie Time
One night we were watching movies with several Tin
Cans tied up alongside when there was quite a bit of
excitement. The searchlights on the destroyers came on and
spotted a plane almost directly overhead. They sounded
General Quarters, and we all broke ranks at the movies
and went for our assigned General Quarters station. The hatch I
had to go through was down so I had to slide through the
manhole center.
When I hit the stairs, I flipped in a somersault
landing on my knees with the rest of the crowd right behind me.
Limping, I continued on to damage control in the Mess
Hall. I never heard whether it was a friendly
aircraft or a Jap taking pictures from the Island of
Yap.
Where Did Those Lobsters Go?
One time, when we were checking the readings on the
food cargo hatches, a box was found outside the door.
Nobody was around, so we thought it was some leftover
and took it down to the engine room. Opening the box,
we found two large lobsters. Using superheated steam,
we had a quick lobster dinner and flushed the shells
out the bilge and hid the box.
The mess man had forgotten the key and while he had
gone back to get it, we had discovered the box.
The FLAG was aboard the "Y" and they had been ordered
for a special occasion. We said we hadn't seen a box
and knew nothing about it, but we hope that some mess
man didn't get his butt in a sling.
Midget Subs in the Ulithi Atoll
 While we were repairing destroyers at Ulithi, the
Japs were planning to hit us with midget subs, I don't
know how they got in but we heard there were three of
them. General Quarters
sounded and for a time, it was every ship for itself. We zigged, zagged and had no way to
exit the Atoll. When GQ sounded, one of the ice
machine crew by the name of T. C. Rowland, Rocky Mt.,
North Carolina got his fingers on the edge of the watertight door. We were working on the compressors
and saw the two finger tips come into the ice room. No
purple heart, just weeks of anguish for Tom. Later,
after everything settled down, they found the midget
sub on the beach with a dead Jap inside.
|
