Mindanao Philippines, April 1945
Planning for the move up to Mindanao was well under
way in early April. The Troop was to move up aboard an LST and I got
the duty of working out detailed plans for the loading of all our vehicles
and cargo. This turned out to be a real job. A spot for each vehicle
had to be assigned ahead of time on both the tank and weather decks.
Loading would involve backing each vehicle into place and then chaining
it down, so it could come off forward at the time of landing.
After about a week of working with scale templates
of the vehicles and a scale diagram of the LST which had been assigned
to us, I had a fair idea of what had to be done. The various landing
craft and other ships which would make up the convoy began arriving
and anchoring offshore, I got the number of our particular LST from
the Harbor Master and secured a small amphibious craft to take me out
to make contact with our ship and go aboard to make preliminary plans
with its Commanding Officer. As we rode around the harbor, looking for
our LST, I suddenly noticed that all of the ships were bringing their
flags down to half-mast. What was going on?
About this time, we found our ship, came alongside
and I went aboard, after the usual Navy formalities. Then I learned
what was going on. The date was April 12, 1945. President Roosevelt had just died. Loading the LST for real was a lot different than on
paper. It took us about a day and a half, but we got it done. The skipper
of the LST was making his first combat operation and had pulled up too
far on the beach. We were loaded and couldn't get off the beach!
In the middle of the night, with the convoy waiting
on us, we had to unload the tank deck, pull off the beach and reload
the whole tank deck. We made it and joined the convoy, but it was tough!
Our landing on Mindanao was uneventful. We approached the West-Central
coast of the island through Moro Bay and landed near the village of
Cotabato.
Preamble | Part
1 | Part 2 | Part
3 | Part 4 | Part
5 | Part 6 | Part
7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part
10 | Part 11
