Two LST rides. One long and peaceful, one short and violent.

LST stands for Landing Craft Tank. Some people who served on them said that it stood for Large Stationary Target! When I was wounded on Peleliu I was separated from my outfit. I ended up, after a long slow troop ship journey from the hospital and recovery on Guadalcanal, at Hickam Field in Honolulu. My outfit was nowhere to be seen. I did visit some of the paper work staff who were stationed across the island of Oahu. I remember hitch hiking through some beautiful Hawaiian scenery to visit them. (I went over the Pali.) I was put on a LST to go to Leyte. I was led to believe that my outfit might be there.

It was over 5000 miles to Leyte. At around 5 miles per hour it took six weeks to get there.

What to do for six weeks? I was so young that I did not even drink coffee. I later learned to drink coffee in Korea. This LST was brand new and manned by the Coast Guard. It had a faucet in the wall outside the kitchen that dispensed hot coffee all day. I played pinochle all day every day. What a long peaceful ride.

I remember getting off the LST and searching for my outfit all up and down the beach. It turned out that they were in New Guinea! You can imagine how a teen age boy looking for his buddies felt. After some tent time in a casual camp I was put in a company of combat engineers preparing to invade Okinawa. (That is another story. This blog is about LST rides.) My Leyte landing ended my first LST ride.

My second and last LST ride was from Okinawa to Korea in October, 1945. Loading of our LST was interrupted by Typhoon Louise. I was talking about the Typhoon the other morning at coffee and have since googled it. I knew that it was big storm but Mr Google really opened my eyes.  We were loading the ship via the landing ramp when word of the storm arrived. I was on the beach. With great alarm we were told to get on the ship fast. I was the last man to go up the ramp. I can remember the ramp coming up and the doors closing behind me. Sorry, my picture shows people unloading, but you get the idea. Our wise skipper was taking the ship to sea to ride out the storm.

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Typhoon Louise was on October 7, 8, and 9. It veered at the last minute and went straight across Okinawa. All the wind velocity measuring devices broke. Some estimate that there 200 mph winds. Some said that were 60 foot waves. That is high. You did not stand on the deck to see them. It was even dangerous to move around inside the ship.  A naval historian said that Typhoon Louise was the worst storm ever encountered by the US Navy.

Hundreds of ships were either damaged beyond repair or lost. The loss of life was surprisingly low (43). However, 80% of the housing on Okinawa was blown away or damaged. Quonset huts blew away. The rounded design of a Quonset supposedly made it wind proof. Wrong! Tent cities for 150,000 troops blew away. I recall that we rolled all of our tent sides up and raked the whole company area, before we left, so that it would be ready and neat for new occupents. The tents all blew away. After the storm passed we came back to the beach and finished loading up. We then sailed to Inchon, Korea. The trip took a week or so,

This storm would have caused much trouble for the planned invasion of Japan. Thank goodness the war was over.

My tent buddies and I in front of tents soon to be blown away.

(Army 23) Where was I on October 7, 1945?

I was on a LST in the eastern part of the West China Sea off the coast of Okinawa. I remembered that when I left Okinawa that the loading of our LST was interrupted by a huge typhoon. When I googled the typhoon I learned how big it was and that it was named Typhoon Louise. And the date that it hit Okinawa. And the terrible damage that it did.  Check this link for my blog about Louise and the old prunepicker. LST Rides Also included in this story is the tale of a long LST ride across the Pacific.

After Louise blew by we returned to the beach and finished loading our LST. Then we sailed for Inchon, Korea. We moved inland to the edge of Seoul. We were based in the large well built buildings of a school for boys. There was a large auditorium that we used for a mess hall. Our barracks were large classrooms. The toilet was a room lined with cement ditches filled with running water. It required crouching.

One of the jobs that I did in Korea was going to downtown Seoul and installing sit-down toilets over slits in the floors. We built the sit-down toilets out of wood. This was in modern office buildings. These buildings were being used for the offices of the Army Command. Officers do not like crouching to go to the toilet, either.

One time I was standing guard in a square in Seoul. I visited with boy my age (20). He could not believe that I had owned a car before going in the Army

One time I attended a concert of Korean music by the Royal Orchestra. It was in a fancy theatre downtown. The seats were small and very uncomfortable. I did not like the music.

This is when I started to drink coffee. I would come in from work in the cold and the only drink served with the evening meal was coffee. I started with half coffee and half milk. I was several years weaning myself to black coffee.

I can remember walking sentry duty. In an upstair room officers and nurses were a having a jolly party. I remember that the Les Brown recording of Sentimental Journey was playing.

At this time a lot of my time was devoted to a point system. This was a system to discharge the large numbers of military people in a fair and logical way. Before we left Okinawa all people with 85 or more points were pulled out of their units and sent home for discharge. I had 64 points. I watched all the news. I was ready to go home. You received a point for every month in the service, a point for every month overseas, 5 points for a combat landing, 5 points for every battle served in, and 5 points for service medals. My Purple Heart was worth 5 points.

Every week the points required to go home dropped. I was soon at the top of the list.

Pretty fancy place. There was even a large swimming pool.

(Army 6) I take a luxury cruise to Hawaii.

We were at Camp San Luis Obispo for five months. While there we made many practice combat landings. We started on the side of a simulated troopship in Moro Bay. It was actually a tall wall. We would climb down nets and load into LCVPs. We would sail around Morro Rock and conquer California. (At least Central California) Then we made a trip in a troop ship down to the Southern California coast where we made three practice landings. We got used to climbing down nets, which is kinda tricky when both the troop ship and the LCVP is bobbing.

On April 30, 1944 we boarded a truck convoy. After an overnight stop in Merced we arrived at Camp Beale in Marysville, California. We spent a month packing all our gear. We dipped our rifles and metal gear in cosmoline.  That was a messy job.

June 6, 1944 (a day which will always be known D-Day in Normandy) we boarded a troop train and under secret orders traveled to Fort Lawton in Seattle. This is one beautiful train ride. Mountains, trees, and lakes. I have never forgotten it. There were tight switchbacks where we could almost reach out and touch a part of our train going the other way. I would like to take that ride again.

Fort Lawton was a distinguished looking old military installation. There were good looking buildings and lawns that went down to the Puget Sound. At the gate was a street car stop, where you could catch a streecar that could take you downtown. I have heard that the fights downtown were bigger than the fights with the Marines in Santa Barbara. I did not see any fights on my trips to downtown Seattle. I never have been much into bar room fights.

Entrance to Fort Lawton.

Neat, huh?

This house currently up for sale. Must have been officer housing.

When Jackie and I moved to the Olympic Peninsula in 1989 we drove through the Fort so that I could use my memory muscles. The Fort has been closed for sometime. I recently read an article that said the Fort is being sold for real estate development.

After 12 days we boarded the fine old Matson luxury liner SS Lurline. It had been converted into a troop carrier. We were really packed in. There was a lot of deck to walk around on, however. I got to look into the grand space in the liner that had a huge impressive stairway. I know that the officers were quite comfortable.

Fancy troop ship.

The Waikiki Dining Room on the SS Lurline. The table in the center is the Captain's Table. I never even got to look into this room.

When we were boarding and pulling out there were lots of people waving, cheering, and giving us cookies. etc. A band played music. A jolly time was had by all.

The trip from Seattle to Hawaii was only 7 days. That was the fastest trip that I ever had on a troop ship. It is about 2700 miles from Seattle to Hawaii. That means we sailed at about 16 miles per hour. The next year I took a ride in an LST at 5 miles per hour. It was a six week ride from Hawaii to Leyte. I doubt that my trip on the Lurline qualifies as a luxury cruise. But it was on a ship that had made many luxury cruises. The Lurline used to sail from California to Hawaii in five days.

The moral of this blog post is "join the Army and take a luxury cruise to Hawaii". But do not expect to get a seat at the Captain's Table!

Army Trips. World War II.

Between the time that I was inducted into the Army on 17 Apr 1943 and when I was discharged on 8 Jan 1946 the Army took me on many trips. I calculate 16 trips. The shortest was 30 miles and was a ride from Gary and Fourth in Pomona, California to the local Army Reception Center in Arlington. Arlington is now part of the city of Riverside. The longest trip was 5,800 miles from Pearl Harbor to a combat landing on Angaur, in the Palau Islands. On that trip we went out of the way to Guadalcanal to have our last dress rehearsal for our landing on Angaur.

I estimate that the total mileage of the trips was 30,000 miles. I spent five months traveling, four months of the five were on troopships. We crossed the equator and became Shellbacks, I crossed the Pacific four times. It sure is a big ocean. I was six weeks on one of those trips. I was on a 5 mph LST.

The table below lists the trips with some data. The table is followed by a rough sketch of the trip routes. This table will be a help as I write the story of the army part of my life.

Trip	Origin	Destination	Trans. Type	Miles	Purpose	Remarks
1	Pomona	Arlington	Bus	30	Drafted. Get nice haircut	Reception center. Inducted 17 Apr 43 (17 years old)
2	Arlington	Lompoc	Train	200	Basic training	Camp Cooke
3	Lompoc	San Bernardino	Train	200	Desert training	Aborted in 30 days
4	San Bernardino	San Luis Obispo	Truck (overnight at Santa Barbara)(Battle of SB)	300	Amphibious training	At Moro Bay
5	San Luis Obispo	San Diego (Round trip)	Troopship	700	Practice landings	Land at Aliso Canyon, San Clemente, Coronado
6	San Luis Obispo	Marysville	Truck (overnight at Merced)	350	Prepare for overseas (dip gear in cosmoline)	Camp Beale
7	Marysville	Seattle	Train (very scenic ride)	700	Catch ship	Fort Lawton
8	Seattle	Honolulu	Matson Liner SS Maui	2700	Took rugged jungle training	Camp in a pineapple field on hill above Pearl Harbor
9	Honolulu	Palau Islands	Troopship (made last dress rehearsal. land on Guadalcanal)	5800	Combat landing in Palau Islands	Wounded on Bloody Nose Ridge, Peleliu, 27 Sep 44
10	Palau Islands	Guadalcanal	Hospital ship	2200	Heal gun shot wounds	Hospital
11	Guadalcanal	Honolulu	Troopship	3600	Trip to rejoin my outfit	They were not in Hawaii
12	Oahu	Leyte	LST	5300	Or here either	Darn, I miss them
13	Leyte	Okinawa	Troopship	1100	Combat landing	Easter Sunday 45
14	Okinawa	Seoul	LST	800	Occupy Korea
15	Seoul	Tacoma	Troopship	5200	Heading home	Fort Lewis
16	Tacoma	San Pedro	Troopship (stop over night in Portland and San Francisco)	1500	Get discharged, 8 Jan 46	Fort MacArthur