This is a picture of myself and John Crabtree while on liberty in Honolulu. We are posing with professional models to have fun pictures to send to friends back home. I was lucky enough to contact a classmate who had this picture.

John Crabtree was the motor mack, Uric was the coxswain and I was the deck hand and the 30-caliber machine gunner. On the invasion of Okinawa Lieutenant Jg Cherchiere who came aboard led us.

 We were the lead boat on the first wave to hit Brown Beach. Originally we were supposed to transfer the troops to LVT but all the pounding from the battleships and cruisers could not make a dent on the seawall. Later on in the day the corp. of engineers drilled and blasted a hole in the wall to permit vehicles to go ashore. Consequently we were the first boat to lower the ramp on Brown beach.

 There was one scary event on the way to the shore. We were still in the smoke screen as we passed the stern of a cruiser. It appeared to us that the ship was being hit when all the while it was a salvo of rockets to clear the beach of any of the enemy. We were not briefed about rocket fire therefore we were shaking in our boots.

One day later a we approached an LST to get some chow when we heard a plane overhead and Uric passed on by to the bow end of the LST Looking over our shoulder we saw the Jap plane miss the stern of the ship. When it hit the water it went under only to pop back up. We didn’t stay and ended up warming a can of beans on the Gray Marine Diesel.

John was a gentleman as well as a good sport. He along with Wesley Page and many other crewmembers bring pleasant memories to mind.