(Army 19) April 1, 1945. Easter Sunday. April Fools Day. L Day. Invasion of Okinawa.

We were a lot of people in a lot of ships. There were almost 200,000 (eventually it would be a half million) troops. There were around 1500 ships. This was the largest invasion force in the Pacific War. We were sailing to Okinawa. I can remember standing on the deck of my troop ship and looking and marveling at how many ships I could see. They were everywhere. I remember the quiet at night. Hundreds of ships sailing quietly through the night.

I have very little memories from my short stay on Leyte. I do not recall any training. I believe that I was promoted to corporal. Back in basic training I was promoted to private first class. When I was court marshaled at Camp San Luis Obispo, I was demoted back to a plain private. What! me court marshaled? Yes I went AWOL.  I went the few hours home to Pomona from San Luis Obispo for Christmas Dinner. They had a bed check and noticed that I was gone. There were several of us. I can remember a mass court marshall trail. I was demoted and sentenced to 30 days labor. I did the labor after my regular work hours. It made for a full day.

On Leyte I was put in charge of a fifty caliber air cooled machine gun. Two men and myself. The gun weighs about 130 pounds. It breaks down in to three parts. The barrel, the receiver, and the tripod.

On the ship we were told where we were going. It was the large island, Okinawa. It was about 500 miles from Japan. There were many aerial photographs to study. We were told almost exactly where we were to go and set up our machine gun. The spot was on the edge of an airfield. It was a job getting the machine gun across a hundred yards of coral beach. We also had ammo boxes. We did not receive fire on the landing. The Japanese had fortified the southern part of the island. That is where the heavy fighting was to take place.

We went to our spot and set up our machine gun nest. We were proud of it. Then a truck from the anti-aircraft troops drove up and parked near us. On the truck they had quad  (four) 50 caliber machine guns mounted on a turret! We felt like small potatoes.

I witnessed a tragedy. An airplane came down the beach at a low altitude. It was immediately subjected to intense fire from the ground. People thought that it was a Japanese airplane. It crashed and we found out that it was a US airplane. It was so sad.