I keep hoping a former ship mate or family member of one will have the itinerary history of the USS Pickens and make me a copy. I resort to memory and research to compile a sort of history.
When the emperor of Japan agreed to unconditional surrender the Japanese people immediately ended the war. Our ship and others were preparing to invade the main island when Japan surrendered August 14-15. Less than a month later our occupation troops were accepted. The nation was so peaceful that our captain took a Jeep and a driver and went on a sight-seeing trip through Nagoya and surrounding area.
Japanese rifles and swords were turned in and as we were among the first Americans there, each crew member was to get a rifle and a sword. All that was required was for the captain or executive officer to sign for them.
The exec offered to accompany a working party and sign, but the captain refused, saying he would sign. The working party went to the storage building and waited and waited but the captain never showed. He returned to the ship, saying he just forgot. The exec cursed him but we had to leave the next morning. I don't know the places we stopped on the way back to San Francisco, probably Saipan or Guam and the Philippines.
We became part of the "magic carpet" and spent months bringing troops home from various places in the South Pacific. We would spend a few days in San Francisco, take on supplies, and head back to sea, going at the ship's top speed of about 19 knots. We had to convert sea water to fresh and as a result water was rationed. When troops came on board they used little water, having grown accustomed to bathing in a helmet. As we approached San Francisco they would begin to bathe and water would be restricted to fresh water being available in showers only five minutes every four hours. Unless you could get a shower in those five minute periods, you bathed in salt water, or just stank.
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