As the anniversary of the battle for Okinawa approaches, questions come to my mind. When did we ( the crew) learn that we were to attack Okinawa? Did we have any idea of what awaited us, how many casualties the navy would suffer?
I remember isolated events and have written about many of them, but I can't put them in context, that is I don't always know when they took place, which came first. We did our job at Iwo, landing the Marines and their equipment, taking the wounded that we treated on our ship to a base hospital, and returning to Saipan.
According to Mike White's journal, we cleaned the ship, entered a rest period, and devoted a few days to training a new group of Marines. I remember going to an uninhabited island with two cans of soda and two of beer but no water or ice. White said that these visits, where we swam, played softball and touch football,took place about once a week during this rest period.
I have previously told about playing touch football where we faced a team that had the entire backfield from the 1942 Holy Cross team that had upset Boston College. I was charging in and tagging the man with the ball when two blocked me on the thighs, totally against the rules.
Another unpleasant memory is of the chief quartermaster and his buddy catching me alone and attacking me, breaking the middle finger of my right hand. A splint to protect the finger was tried but I had to remove it in order to operate the radar.
Otherwise, I enjoyed the visits to the island. I would like to hear from other veterans their memories of this time and later their memories of the attack on Okinawa.
I remember isolated events and have written about many of them, but I can't put them in context, that is I don't always know when they took place, which came first. We did our job at Iwo, landing the Marines and their equipment, taking the wounded that we treated on our ship to a base hospital, and returning to Saipan.
According to Mike White's journal, we cleaned the ship, entered a rest period, and devoted a few days to training a new group of Marines. I remember going to an uninhabited island with two cans of soda and two of beer but no water or ice. White said that these visits, where we swam, played softball and touch football,took place about once a week during this rest period.
I have previously told about playing touch football where we faced a team that had the entire backfield from the 1942 Holy Cross team that had upset Boston College. I was charging in and tagging the man with the ball when two blocked me on the thighs, totally against the rules.
Another unpleasant memory is of the chief quartermaster and his buddy catching me alone and attacking me, breaking the middle finger of my right hand. A splint to protect the finger was tried but I had to remove it in order to operate the radar.
Otherwise, I enjoyed the visits to the island. I would like to hear from other veterans their memories of this time and later their memories of the attack on Okinawa.
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