As I observe my final day of being 86, I think back to August 1945, a month important to the country, to the USS Pickens, and to me personally. We had arrived in San Francisco August 3; an atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima August 6; a second bomb hit Nagasaki August 9, and Japan surrendered on August 14.
We left the states August 24 with the Blackhawk Division on board, but instead of taking those soldiers to Japan we left them in the Philippines, picked up the troops who were occupying those islands and took them to Japan. About two weeks after leaving San Francisco, I realized that my 19th birthday had passed,
The fouled up affair we had to put up with before unloading the troops in Japan, including running out of food, is another story.
We left the states August 24 with the Blackhawk Division on board, but instead of taking those soldiers to Japan we left them in the Philippines, picked up the troops who were occupying those islands and took them to Japan. About two weeks after leaving San Francisco, I realized that my 19th birthday had passed,
The fouled up affair we had to put up with before unloading the troops in Japan, including running out of food, is another story.
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