from SERVING ABOARD LCS 11 in WWII by LBS
On Sept. 24, 1945, in company with LCS Group 9 and other U. S. Navy ships, LCS 11 arrived at Ominato, Japan, en route to Aomori, Honshu, Japan, for landings to carry out the occupation of Japan. The next day’s landing was carried out without any untoward incidents.
On Sept. 30 a group of LCS 11 sailors went ashore, unarmed as a liberty group. I remember some of us gave dry chocolate bars to the few Japanese kids brave enough to approach the rambling sailors. This was the first time I had stepped ashore on Japan, and I looked with awe at the clutter of burned tin roofing piled in heaps where small houses had previously stood.
That evening LCS 11 joined several other LCS’s tied alongside a large cargo ship. By this time LCS 11 and the others had movie projectors of their own and as darkness fell, movies were being shown on the fantails of several ships. I and another LCS 11 crewman could not decide which movie we liked. We stepped easily across the space to the next LCS, and then the next, and a little later the next until we were aboard the big cargo ship and found a big screen and became engrossed in the movie being shown there.
At one point during the movie, we became aware of one of the LCS’s pulling away between the big ship and our LCS 11 which was about five ships away, but we turned back to the movie and enjoyed ourselves. When the movie ended, my buddy and I went down the gangplank to the first LCS and proceeded across the other ships toward our LCS 11 on the outside. But she was not there. I went to the radio shack of the LCS we were on and asked a radioman to call Dungeon One and advise them of our circumstances. In reply, we were advised that LCS 11 was having difficulty maneuvering because one engine was not operating, and it would anchor nearby and pick us up in the morning.
I have searched my notes and they do not show who my LCS 11 buddy was who had become marooned with me. I thought for forty-two years it was Jack Kellog, but he denies it. Anyway, my buddy wondered where we would sleep. We were on LCS 17 and one of their bright radiomen came up with a brilliant idea. He said since he was on duty, I could go down to his bunk and sleep there. When his relief came on duty, the radioman went to his relief’s sack. The same deal was worked for my buddy from LCS 11 who had made the arrangements with the appropriate crewmen in his rating. We had no change of clothes, toothbrush, etc, but we were treated royally.
When morning came, LCS 11 was still not in sight. By radio we were told that it had gone to some distant location to refuel and get a part for one of its engines. Well, this sort of thing went on for three days. I think some of the guys even loaned us a change of clothes while ours were washed.
While we had been at Leyte Gulf in the Phillipines after the Okinawa Battle, we were anchored among hundreds of ships awaiting the expected invasion of Japan. Some daring radioman on one of those ships had been playing music and conducting a regular radio station on the voice network we guarded (that is, we monitored). As a result, a captain had come on the air and warned the culprit broadcasting radio music that ships with radio direction finders were prowling the gulf and the offender would be found and the guilty sailor would be given the full weight of Naval punishment. But, apparently, the sailor-turned-disc-jockey was never found.
Well, I took one look around the LCS 17 radio shack, and I was sure I was aboard the ship that had in its crew the guy who had been broadcasting music on the ship’s radio back at Leyte. The radio shack had those huge records that were as large as a tin tub, with Bob Hope programs on them, Tommy Dorsey, and you name it. These huge discs were called V-Records and were made for Armed Forces Radio programs. The shack on this LCS had various radio hook-ups to other compartments aboard the ship and special microphones. When I asked the leading radioman whether he was the “ghost radio station,” he just grinned.
Well, after three long days we managed to get back aboard the LCS 11 and at 10 p. m. on October the 6th we got under weigh for Yokosuka. Evidently Robert Faller and Charles Hammond and the other radiomen on our ship covered very well for me as I do not remember getting any reprimand. LCS 11 went on to Yokohama, Yokosuka, and Sasebo, and Shanghai.
The final part of this story played out after I was a civilian. I returned to civilian life on April 15, 1946, hoping to get into journalism, but colleges were bulging at the seams with returning veterans and I could not get into Carolina, but did attend a temporary division in the evening at Charlotte. My brother Jack was at Lenoir-Rhyne College in Hickory studying for the Lutheran ministry. He pulled some strings and I enrolled there on June14, 1947.
As I went through college on an accelerated program, I finished in January 1950 and became a full-fledged reporter for the Hickory Daily Record. I had freelanced and done features for the paper while in college. One day the sports editor left for the Greensboro Daily News and his old job was shoved on me. I liked to play sandlot baseball and pitch horseshoes, but I was just a mediocre sports fan. Still, with the help of others I dug in.
In one case, my work as a reporter led to an exciting reminder of my Navy days when Lenoir-Rhyne hired a new basketball coach, Jim (Pappy) Hamilton, in June of 1950. Some sports-minded Hickory citizens had hosted a dinner for the new coach at the Hickory Country Club on June 13, and I was there to cover the story.
After the formal part of the program was over, I had a chance to talk with Coach Hamilton and ask him a few questions. As we talked, I learned he had been in the Navy. He said he had been the captain of LCS 17. I was amazed. So just five years after being an uninvited guest aboard his ship for three days, I ate a steak with Hamilton the skipper of the ship. Since I was no longer in any danger of being reprimanded or thrown into the brig, I told him the little story about my three-day visit aboard his ship at Aomori, Japan. I asked him whether he had heard that two sailors from LCS 11 had become stranded on LCS 17.
To be truthful, I was quite chagrined by his answer about the matter. Coach Hamilton said he “thought maybe he remembered some incident like the one I described.” The next time I get marooned on somebody’s ship I am going to kick the radio shack apart, so even the captain will know I was aboard.
Tags: anchoring at Japan 1945, Bob Hope, LCS 11, LCS 17, remembrance, small warship, story telling, Tommy Dorsey, US Navy, WWII
