During the past few months, your father has been sending me some of
his recollections from the days, long ago, when boys turned into men 
almost overnight! And with just cause. After reading his first chapter, I 
immediately contacted him and asked that he let me publish those memoirs 
in these pages, just for you! Following are samples of some of the 
photographs which will complement some of the chapters..... The actual 
text will be uploaded as it is processed. So come back and visit often 
because these pages will grow, and grow.... (don't forget to press 'reload'
every tme you visit. These are `dynamic' pages!

How it all came about.

In March of 1945 being a punk of only 17 years of age, I was too young yet 
for the military service, and my brother had been drafted and put into the 
Navy. I too, having quit school and eager to do my share toward the war 
effort, tried to join any branch of the military, but was rebuffed because of 
my young age. I had a pal down the street from my house that I hung around 
with (my same age ). Next door to him was a man that was the Captain of a 
ship that was owned by the U.S Army. One day while he was home on leave, 
my buddy & I started talking to him about the services, relating to him our 
plight about being rejected by all of the services because of our age, even 
the U.S Maritime service. Well, he told us that he could pull some strings 
with the service that he was in  named the U.S. Civil Service.

This branch of the Govt. hired people to serve on the ships that were owned 
by of all things the U.S Army! These ships were mostly repair ships that 
were staffed by skilled Army repair technicians for various aircraft repair, PT 
boats etc., but knew nothing about manning a ship and sailing it. 
( they were good workers and eaters though! ) So we went with the Capt.one 
day down to the headquarters in San Pedro and went through the interview 
and sign up process.

Beings that we didn't have Maritime papers to qualify us to go to sea, the 
Civil Service took care of that and got them for us. Imagine now, 2 young 
numbnuts wide eyed, ignorant,  and signing our lives away to a contract that 
was about to put us aboard a sea going vessel complete with cannons and 
machine guns, depth charges etc., to begin our worldly adventure in the war 
zone! 

We had absolutely NO experience whatsoever at anything! so we were 
assigned to the galley serving food and washing dishes and pots and pans! 
That's OK we said, we just wanted to go overseas! We were allowed to 
return home and say goodbye to our families, and report back the next 
morning to the clothing warehouse and get our uniforms and then our 
assignment to a ship. 

Meet FS-22... Home Away From Home

Repair ship that I went overseas on, the FS221
Taken in Manila harbor 1945
Well!! Did we get a rude awakening!!, we were assigned to 2 different ships, 
right from the start, they were going to make men of us! Both ships sailed 
out of the harbor 6 hours later, and we got to waive goodbye to each other as 
we sailed down the channel to open sea and headed in different directions. 

Never saw my buddy again for 2 years! Now here comes the big laugh! After 
about 3 more hours out on the big ocean it was getting dark, and I showed 
my real stupidity by asking one of the old seasoned sea go'ers, "when does 
the ship park for the night!" the guy looked at me and then busted out in 
laughter and said : you sure that your Mother knows where you are!. ( well, 
later on we became good friends ) ( had to, we were confined to a 180 ft of 
ship! ) 

There were 25 of us Civil Service guys that "drove" the ship, and there were 
100 Army techs. aboard.  When we left San Pedro  the ship had taken on a 
new cook, ( the one that came with the ship was drunk in a bar at sailing time 
so they hurried and grabbed whatever was available for a cook! )

We got through the first nights meal OK, but during the night we ran into a 
pretty good storm that set us to rocking pretty good, and also made the 
cook VERY seasick.!

He couldn't answer the call the next morning to fix breakfast and the Capt. 
got real pissed about missing breakfast!! It turned out that the new cook was 
a chronic sea sicker and another drunk!! The Capt. put him in the sick bay 
under arrest until we reached our next port, Hawaii, Honolulu, and the MP's 
came and removed him from the ship. 

Well……in the meantime the Capt. and the men were getting hungry, and we 
couldn't keep eating up in the Army's part of the ship where their cook and 
mess hall was. ( we operated as 2 separate units ) While we were still at sea 
prior to reaching Honolulu and after the Army  told us that we couldn't keep 
chowing down in their quarters, the Capt. informed ME that I would have to 
do the cooking!! 

Big Shit!! I was only a dishwasher and table server not a cook for 25 men! 
Damn,…. 4 days after leaving San Pedro I was beginning to realize the folly 
of my big adventure! Here we were in the middle of the ocean in the middle 
of this gigantic storm that had us rolling around like a roller coaster, and 
now I am cooking for 25 men!! And the ship was beginning to smell like one 
big puke! ( we had to keep all windows and door hatches closed because of 
the weather ) besides that the smart assed Capt. decided that he would turn 
away from the storm to try and go around it, but instead ran right through 
the middle of it which blew us even further off course ( the patrolled and 
protected sea lane between Honolulu and the U.S. )

Repair Ship vs Aircraft Carrier

The sail between the States and Honolulu is an easy 7 day cruise. On the 12th 
morning we woke up to staring down the cannon barrels on one of our 
aircraft carriers, and the reprimand from the carriers command that we were 
way to hell off our course and to get back on it immediately!!  before we 
attracted Japanese subs!! 

The carriers command was not in the mood for our Capts. excuse about how 
he changed course to get away from the storm. They informed us that 
because due to the blackout at sea, they had found us during the night and 
decided to follow us until daylight instead of blowing us out of the water! To 
illustrate his wrath they shot a round over our bow!! 

Shit I thought what the hell am I doing out here on this ship arguing with our 
own people!! I tell you that was the one and only time that I witnessed a ship 
make a complete 90 degree right turn in the middle of the ocean!! We headed 
deeper into the storm with the carrier on our ass all day FULL speed ahead!! 

We get a new Captain... We lose the Cook!

Well we finally made it to Honolulu on the 18th day!! And after they took the 
cook away with an MP escort, about 3 hours later they came and took the 
Capt. away too!! The next day we got a new skipper, but no new cook!! 

Wasn't any to be had in Honolulu. I suppose that because we tied up at the 
wrong dock when we arrived, and was informed to get our ship away from 
that dock immediately, the Capt. was a little gun shy by now, so in his haste 
to move to another dock, he didn't wait long enough for the dock hands to 
release the big houser tie up ropes that were secured to the dock, so he 
moved on,…… towing part of the dock with us!! I think that, that,  and the 
other incident is what ended his career as a ships Capt.! 

Good riddance to the S.O.B. ,for appointing me to the cooks job.! ( good 
thing that my Mother taught everyone of us kids how to cook.  I could 
manage to put out some fairly decent meals, got a lot of compliments from 
the crew any way.) I had to cook for the next 3 months until we finally 
reached Leyte ( sailing with Admiral Halsey's fleet of a 150 ship convoy, that 
was being readied for his sail into Japan that ended the war a few months 
later.) 

My first pay raise!

When I left the cooking duties in Leyte, the Chief engineer asked me to take a 
job in the engine room, which I accepted with a raise in pay! I worked with 
the engineers and stood watch with them. I caught on fast because that is 
what I wanted to do in the first place! ( what did those butt heads in San 
Pedro know anyway! ) We sat at the edge of the airfield in Leyte, so that the 
Army techs could go ashore everyday and repair damaged planes. 

We did that for 6 months. We saw a lot of dogfights in the air above us, the 
Japanese were determined to try and get to Halsey's fleet before he sailed 
on to Tokyo. I witnessed a lot of crashing of planes in the beach shores right 
near us. I saw one of our P38 dbl. fuselage planes hit about 100 ft. off the 
beach in a full speed ahead straight down dive! Not a pretty sight when it is 
one of your own. 

The rescue crews couldn't even find the plane, because it went so deep into 
the water and sand. A few months later the war came to an end while we 
were still there in Leyte. I have some pretty spectacular photos of the ships 
all firing their flares of all colors into the air and all ships horns just blaring 
away at a deafening pitch!

Victory Day  



Standing on the rear deck of the tug boat