Friday, June 20, 2014

Liberty at Noumea -- not a Sunday School picnic

Expected and understood but still sad to learn this year will be the final lunch honoring World War II veterans at Barksdale Air Force Base.  After all, the average age  of veterans of that war is 93.  I am a youngster at nearly 88.

This renewed memories of my experiences in the war, with emphasis on Iwo Jima and Okinawa. The anniversary of the end of the battle for Okinawa -- that costly and bloody final battle  -- will be June 21.

The USS Pickens, APA 190, had a job to do and did it, including picking up survivors from three ships, but we were taking it easy in Saipan when we were sent to the French island of New Caledoniaa and its capital
 city of Noumea.

Three of my friends and I were among the first to get liberty, which began in the middle of the morning. We visited a bar, where I had my first taste of an alcoholic drink, which was a Tom Collins because "it tasted like lemonade."

From there we visited the Ships Service, ate some ice cream and bought an Eisenhower jacked for an English serviceman.  We had about exhausted everything the city offered so we decided to go back to the ship.  First we would stop by the bar and have another Tom Collins, but each bar looked the same, a rough plank across two barrels. 

We were sober when we left the bar but as soon as we got back into the sunshine we began to stagger.  How it happened we did not know but we were drunk. We managed to get back to the dock and shipmates took care of us, even helping us undress.

We learned that one third of the crew took care of  the ship, one third went on liberty, and one third took care of the drunks, which turned out to be everybody.

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