By ship to Tokyo!We were told that we were going by ship to Toyko. The whole battallion was going, how great, it should only take a couple of days. We loaded up on the trucks which would take us down to the docks. We got to the ship. It looked kind of small. "What is it?" "Its an LST!" "Where's the rest of the battallion?" "Oh they are going by a regular transport. This LST will be carrying the battalion's vehicles and being there is additional room our battery is going with the vehicles."
And so we grabbed our dufflebags and marched up through the double front doors. The inside looked like a gymnasium full of vehicles. We went past the trucks and up a long narrow stairway along the side wall of the "gym". Through a door into a long narrow room with bunks along the outside wall, then through another room and then into a third room. "Hey, this is where you will bunk." Not too bad. We stowed our gear. I don't remember but I think the bunks were 3 or 4 high. This gave us more room than the troop ship I came over on. The bunks had a railing about 8 inches high along two thirds the length of the bunk. I wonder why?
In the corner of the compartment there is a ladder. We can climb the ladder up into another compartment, then up another ladder, open a hatch and come up onto the deck. The deck is also full of vehicles, all chained down. "Hey this is kind of fun." Go back down to our compartment and then go find the latrine. This is ok also. The toilets flush and have stateside toilet seats! Quite a bit better than our old 8 seater outhouse in Korea.
Soon its time for chow. We are told to take our mess kits with us. The line moves pretty fast. I hold out my pan and the server drops a steaming can into it. Clank! Whats this. Why its a hot C-ration can. I also get a small tin of powdered cocoa another tin with a biscuit and jam in it. I go to a table, pull out my trusty p-38 opener and have a hot meal. The p-38 is a small folding can opener, about an inch and a half long. I always kept one in my wallet. I figured that because we just got on, the navy didn't have time to prepare a regular meal and starting tommorow we would have that good navy food. I was wrong both ways. Its not a navy ship. Its an army ship and we will have C-rations for the full trip. Our top speed was 10 knots. It took 7 days.
That night, I couldn't sleep. I become sick. It wasn't the C-rations. It was the ship. I was seasick! I spend most of the night with my head in a toilet. The odd thing is we haven't left the dock yet. It must have been the smell of the ship and the memory of my voyage coming over. The next day I'm fine and I didn't get sick again for the remainder of the voyage.
Oh, the reason for the railings on the bunks was because when we hit open water the ship would roll to point that without the railing there was no way a person could stay in the bunk. The LST is a flat bottomed ship with a draft of only 14 ft. It didn't pitch but boy did it roll. (continued)
The photo above is not the ship we were on but is a typical LST.